


Coming Home

by Charmkeeper



Series: Home [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Additional Tags to Be Added, But also any combination of them together, Fluff, Happily Ever After, M/M, OT4 Overall, The tooth rotting kind, Werewolf AU, You've been warned, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2019-10-14 00:11:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17497952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charmkeeper/pseuds/Charmkeeper
Summary: At the end of the day, it's nice to come home to the ones you love.A series of events set after the events ofFinding Home.





	1. Rings, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto's getting married soon, yet he's not worried the wedding. What he's worried about is Ignis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings to all!
> 
> To returning readers: Thank you so much for coming! <3  
> Those just happening upon this story: Also thank you, but, considering that this is a sequel, I would recommend reading the other parts of the series first, unless you just wants boundless fluff and don't care about backstory. <3
> 
> You may have noticed that this chapter title has a "Part One" by it. Allow me to explain. _Rings_ will have three parts, all from **Prompto's POV**. While these three chapters have other pairings in them, all three focus on interactions between **Prompto and Ignis**. This first chapter takes place approximately **three years** after the end of _Finding Home_
> 
> Not all the chapters will be like this, I have at least ten chapters planned from various POVs, and various OT4 pairings. 
> 
> Updates will be basically "When I finish the chapter" but will also never be less than two weeks apart and always on Sundays.
> 
> I think that's everything I needed to touch base on! Please enjoy! <3

Prompto was nervous.

Honestly, Prompto had a lot to be nervous about. He was getting married in two weeks. Married! A part of him was super excited about it, because of course he was. In those brief moments between the other things going on in his life he'd only ever imagined getting married to Gladio, his mate. It wasn't Gladio though, it was Noctis. Noctis had asked him to marry him, and that was better than good, it was great.

He didn't have to do a lot for it. He was the cliche "husband" in this arrangement. Noctis knew what he wanted, knew how to get it, knew how to arrange it. He'd done similar things for pack members before, so it came easily to him. Prompto was there to get fitted for a suit, and to give his opinion when asked, and even then, honestly, his usual answer was, "Whatever you want, buddy."

He was really excited for it! Being married to Noctis would strengthen their bond. Not on a pack level, but on the legal level, and the public level. He loved it, he loved Noct, and that made the engagement and impending wedding feel right. There was still a lot to be nervous about, like writing his vows, not ruining his suit with pop during a fitting (not that there was pop within a fifty yard radius, but one could never know for sure.) There was also not tripping during the ceremony, not stuttering during speeches, the first dance, and...Ignis.

Ignis had not been a primary concern when Noctis had first proposed. Noctis and Ignis were mates, like, the closest bonded mates ever, as far as Prompto was concerned. (They could talk to each other with their minds! How cool was that?!) Noctis would have never asked for Prompto's hand if they hadn't discussed it, and if Ignis hadn't been okay with it. Suddenly though, two weeks out, Ignis was nowhere to be found.

He wasn't missing on a level that worried Gladio or Noct. He was home for dinner on time, he still slept in Noctis' bed, he made sure he had breakfast, but it was just...harder to get him. He didn't respond to texts in his normal timely manner. He was tired and more distant. He left an hour early in the morning and came home an hour later. Gladio and Noctis weren't concerned, not that he'd really asked them, but they just didn't _feel_ concerned. Prompto was. Prompto remembered. Prompto remembered the last time Ignis had begun to withdraw more than usual. That had ended in Ignis almost dying, and though there was no Ardyn to attack him while he was down, Prompto wasn't going to take a chance. Not with their Ignis.

"He's not here," Coctura told him with a bit of a frown.

"What do you mean he's not here?" Prompto insides squirmed as panic began to set in. "It's lunchtime! He should definitely be here!"

The woman only shook her head. "He's been slipping out at this time for a couple weeks now. I have a number to call, if it's important, but I've never had to use it." She puffed her chest out with pride. "I can handle his baby while he's gone."

At that, Prompto's heart melted a little. He suspected that Ignis viewed Coctura like a sister in a way. He cared for her, he kept an eye on her, he beat off the boys with a broom, as of course he trusted her to watch the shop while he was gone. It was nice that Coctura took that and turned it into intense loyalty, but- "Can I have that number?"

Coctura gave it to him without question, and once he was outside the cafe he called it. A man who's voice he didn't recognize picked up.

_"Mr. Scientia? He's here, but he's almost done, if you want to catch him, you'll have to be quick."_

Quick was something Prompto was good at, and even with afternoon traffic and Do Not Walk lights, Prompto was nearly a mile away at the address he was given less than ten minutes later. He arrived just in time to watch Ignis walk out the front door and pull out his phone to check the time. Naturally, Ignis was quite surprised to see Prompto pop up at his side just a moment later. "What are you doing here?" Ignis checked the time again, "Don't you have a fitting to be at?"

"Not for another hour." Which was more than enough time to finish up here and run there.

Ignis' nose scrunched up in confusion, an adorable, if not common, expression. "Is...everything all right?"

Prompto almost said yes. He almost said yes and just walked away, without even confronting Ignis about...anything! He didn't. He'd grown beyond that point. He was going to get this out. "No!"

"What's--"

"You!" Prompto answered before Ignis had even completed the question. "You're gone! A lot! You're always tired! You don't answer texts for hours during the day! Something's wrong, and you're not telling us, and now--" Prompto stopped short, gesturing at Ignis and the building behind him as though it answered everything. "Is something wrong? Are you angry? Lonely? Sad?! Are you upset that Noct and I are getting married? Are you--"

"Prompto."

"No! I need to know! If you're not okay with it, we can call it off! We can stay as we are--"

"Prompto!"

"Seriously!"

Ignis' hands curled around his cheeks, and Prompto finally stilled, his breath coming in great gulps of shuddering air. "Darling. Nothing is wrong, and I'm sorry that I've worried you," Prompto watched Ignis give one of his little laughs, the nervous one. "I thought I was being subtle, but I suppose you've always been good at noticing the details."

"So you are hiding something!"

Ignis gave another one of those soft, nervous laughs. "Yes, but nothing terrible, I promise." He chuckled. "And. I'm not convincing you of a thing, am I?"

Prompto shook his head. "Not a bit."

"All right," Ignis said with that sort of sigh that Prompto knew had once only been used for Noctis, but was now reserved for all three of them, when they tested him. "If I show you why I've been absent, you must promise to not tell Noct. It has been very difficult for me to keep this from him."

"Depends on what it is." He was promptly given one of those looks that had also once been reserved for only Noctis' antics. "Seriously. If it's bad, I'm telling him. And we're going to smother you in affection. You just watch me! I'll do it! I'll pull out the big guns!" He flexed both of his bare arms in front of Ignis' with his most serious face on.

His goal had to been to make Ignis smile, really smile, and it worked. With that smile something small released in his chest. Good. If he could smile like that, maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe "A hefty threat indeed, but I promise you there will be no need." Out of one of his pockets came an envelope, and it was handed over to Prompto. "Carefully, please. Don't drop them."

Prompto didn't know what he'd been expecting, but when he overturned the envelope in his hand, two rings fell into his palm. One was gold, and the other was silver looking, though it didn't burn his skin, so it had to be some other metal. The sight of them made Prompto's heart do that thing where it felt like it stuttered in his chest. When his brain caught up with his eyes, he looked up at Ignis' smiling face and managed to get out, "Did you...?" He couldn't find the simple words to complete the question, but Ignis understood.

"It's been nearly eleven decades since I've done any metalworking, but I thought this might be the time to dust off the skill. I also thought it would only take me a couple days, but," he coughed a little, the same way he did whenever he messed something up. "Gold has a much lower melting point than I expected, and it's...taken me several tries to get it correct."

"They're beautiful." They were just simple metal bands, but they were still the most beautiful rings he'd ever laid eyes on because Ignis had _made_ them.

"I haven't added the stones yet, so they aren't finished, but I hope that this quiets your nerves." Ignis reached out with his gentle touch and cupped Prompto's hands with his own. "I am not upset about you and Noct's impending marriage. Far from it. I am overjoyed. Please accept these rings as proof."

"I do," Prompto said softly, with a lopsided smile that grew to a grin when Ignis laughed at his joke. "Hey, Iggy?"

"Hm?" Ignis hummed as he slid the rings back into their envelope and from there back into his pocket.

"I think I'm just going to have to smother you in affection anyway."

Ignis laughed again (it was always such a good sound in his ears), and spread his arms open in a welcoming motion. "Far be it from me to deny you."

There were less than two steps between them, but Prompto propelled himself into those open arms, hands dragging his face down to his own, and Ignis' hands settling nicely on his waist. They only separated when his hands had drifted down Ignis' chest, and Prompto's fingers had hooked and twisted in Ignis' belt loops. "You're going to break those," Ignis breathed out as their lips parted. "And then I'm going to have to fix them. I would rather not."

Internally Prompto groaned, and bit his lip. He wanted. He wanted so badly. "When you get home tonight," he began, slowly untwisting his fingers, "These are coming off," He tugged, bringing their hips together and slowly grinding, reveling in the soft sound that escaped Ignis' lips at the friction. "And I'm going to do that thing with my tongue that I know you really like." He smirked at the blush that was spreading over Ignis' face, and pushed himself up again to kiss his lips. "And then I think I'd like to ride you until you see stars, and--"

"Prompto." Ignis cut him off. "We are in public."

"Yeah, we are. And I just found out that one of the men I love isn't upset that I'm marrying his mate. I just found out he's so happy he's literally made us rings. I'm more than a little touched and turned on. You're lucky I'm not looking for an alleyway right now."

Ignis made a sound of disapproval that did absolutely nothing to deter the idea in Prompto's brain. "Please don't. That's very unsanitary, and not nearly as comfortable as popular media would have you believe."

"You _always_ say it's unsanitary."

"Because it _is_."

"You are absolutely no fun," Prompto play pouted, knowing it would get him nowhere, "But I love you anyway."

"And I love you too." Ignis leaned forward just a little to kiss his forehead. "However, you have a fitting to get to, and I need to get back to my cafe."

They parted ways then, very reluctantly on Prompto's part. At the fitting, Noctis tried, but simply couldn't figure out what had gotten Prompto so riled up, but when they got back to the house, his fiance rolled his eyes at him and said, "I know it's not me, so is it Gladio? Or Specs?"

"It's Iggy."

"He's gonna be home by six. I'm guessing I should be out of the house by then and make plans to eat out with Gladio?"

"Yeah. Probably a good idea."

" 'Kay," Noct said, already pulling out his phone to text Gladio. "I'll make sure to bring food back for you guys. You know, after you work out...whatever's got you all hot and bothered." Noctis rolled his eyes again, accompanied by a gesture that indicated the entire situation, and that was as close as Noct got to the topic of the rings until two days before the wedding, when Ignis handed them both a ring box, accompanied by a somewhat nervous smile.

"I know you both picked out rings already, but I sincerely hope that you'll choose these instead."

When Prompto opened his box it was the yellow gold ring from before, but, as he'd stated, gemstones had been added. All around the band small yellow and blue stones had been inlaid to the metal. When he glanced over into Noctis' box, he had the white gold, and his stones were a deeper blue and a deep pink. Their eyes, Prompto realized after a long second. The stones matched their eyes. Bright blue and wolf gold for Prompto, deep blue and magical pink for Noct. "Do the metals have meaning too?"

Ignis smiled and a deep, satisfied pleasure bled into his chest. "My bright sunlight and my beloved moonlight. I need you both."

"If I'm sunlight and he's moonlight, what's Gladio?"

"The summer to thaw my winter heart," Ignis answered straightfaced, as though that weren't the most delightfully cheesy thing he'd ever heard. "But Gladio isn't getting married in two days, so let's not worry about that. Do you like them?"

"You know I do."

"They're beautiful," Noctis said with soft awe, before Prompto saw something click inside his head. "Wait. This was it, wasn't it?!" Noctis turned on him. "Two weeks ago! This was what you all riled up! You found out he made rings!" His shoulder was harshly shoved, but Prompto only laughed at the abuse.

"Guilty as charged. I didn't see them with the stones though."

"Will you accept my gift?"

"Yeah," Noctis breathed. "We...we can sell the other rings. They're just metal. They aren't special. Not like this. I can't tell you what this means to me, Specs. I know you haven't made anything in a long time and...I love them. I can't believe you made them for us."

"You deserve them. You deserve more."

"I think it's you that deserves more. You'll get it."

"You don't owe me anything, Noct."

"No," Noctis said, stepping forward and pushing himself up on his toes to kiss his mate's cheek. "But I want to give you everything." When he lowered himself down flat again, Prompto could feel the joy seeping in and overtaking everything, not just the joy of the rings, but the joy of the oncoming wedding, the joy of being loved. It was their joy, not just his, or Noct's, but Ignis, and Gladio too. Them. Their pack. Their relationship.

That joy lasted all the way until their wedding, a small affair, compared to what Prompto knew it could have been. Even as nerves set in during the vows, the joy lingered, and then grew when Noctis took his hand and said words Prompto would never remember word for word. He wouldn't remember the words, but he would remember Noctis' eyes staring deep into his own as he slid the ring onto his finger. The ring Ignis had made. He would remember it as one of the best moments of his entire life.


	2. Rings, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto is excited for what's coming up next, but he hopes Ignis isn't forgetting someone - himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY SUNDAY. It's time for chapter two!
> 
> It's probably not _exactly_ what you were all hoping for, but I hope it's at least enjoyable!
> 
> The only thing I really need to clarify about this chapter is that it takes place about **sixteen months** after part one.
> 
> Please enjoy! <3

The only way to surprise Ignis was to do things during perfectly mundane moments. In their planning of this particular moment, all three of them had agreed that if they'd set up a special sort of date or even caused something unusual to happen during the day Ignis would have figured out that something was going on and the surprise would be ruined. Ignis was a suspicious sort of man anyway. It wasn't a bad thing. It was partially what had allowed him to be who he was, and live as long as he had, even as a werewolf. He would definitely grow suspicious, and then he'd start asking questions, and then the effect would be ruined. So. No. It had to be a perfectly normal moment during the day.

In the end, they'd all agreed that dinnertime had been the best time to try and execute their plan. In the end, Ignis had unknowingly helped set it up himself.

"Gladio, dinner's almost ready. Would you be so kind as to set the table?"

"Sure thing, Iggy."

Between the two of them, Prompto knew it took a _lot_ of self control for him and Noctis to not nudge each other, to not jostle and giggle in anticipation as Gladio moved behind Ignis and knelt down on one knee. Ignis was none the wiser to Gladio's movements, still moving around himself, his hands seeking out this or that last touch that his meals always required. "Hey, Iggy?"

Hands paused in their fluttering search. "Yes?" Gladio didn't answer him, and Ignis was forced to turn around. "Did you need--" For a second he faltered at the sight behind him, the salt shaker in his hand actually falling from his grasp to clatter on the stovetop. Then. "Something?" The word was breathed more than spoken. Beside Prompto, Noctis snerked, and in return Prompto stomped on his foot to quiet him.

"Iggy," Gladio began, a blush faintly coloring his cheeks, and his lips twisted in a nervous smile. "Ignis. You're not my last love, but you were my first. Our relationship hasn't been continuous, we've had...a lot of lows, but my love has lasted, and I know it will continue to last. I was hoping, that if I asked you to marry me, that you'd say yes." Prompto knew this was the vital moment. Gladio wasn't exaggerating when he said that they'd a lot of lows. Prompto didn't think that he'd ever gotten quite the full story, but he knew enough. He knew that Ignis had once planned this moment himself, he'd planned to ask Gladio to marry him. Trust (or rather a lack of it) had broken them up before the question had even been asked. They hadn't talked for years, hadn't been friends for even longer, and that was just the gist of it. There was more.

This was a big step, but Gladio was sure it was the step he wanted to take. Prompto could feel how sure he was in his chest.

There was a moment, an infinity between seconds, where Prompto suspected Ignis had forgotten how to move or speak. A moment, where his body forgot how to do...anything, and then his brain caught up with reality, and Prompto watched his face flush bright red, and he coughed. It was the sort of "I'm clearing my throat to buy myself time" cough. When he did speak, his voice was an octave too high. "I suppose we'll never know, if you don't ask."

Gladio laughed then, the pink in his own cheeks spreading down to his neck. "Would you? Marry me?"

"Yes." The word lingered in the air only to be followed by, "I think I would."

Then they'd kissed, their lips meeting somewhere halfway between Gladio getting up, and Ignis kneeling down.  It was beautiful and intimate, and Prompto was suddenly very sad that he hadn't thought to grab his camera to capture the moment.

Surprisingly, it was Gladio who took over most of the wedding planning. "Iggy's got a business to run," Gladio had explained one day when they'd been looking at wedding flowers together. "And I just have a day job. If I'm doing something extremely off, he'll let me know." And, to a point, that made sense, but Prompto wasn't so easily sold. Yeah, Ignis had a job, but for the most part, it too was mostly a day job. To say the cafe ran itself was an insult, but the nights when work came home with Ignis were becoming rarer and rarer, and when it did it was more to do with the tenants upstairs than the cafe itself.

Prompto thought there was at least a little bit more to it.

"So," Prompto began by plopping himself down in the spare chair Ignis kept in his work office. It was a woefully small room for all the paperwork that was kept inside it, but this was also Ignis, and the space was absurdly organized. Prompto was pretty sure the folders had folders inside of them. Prompto's photography office at home was at least twice the size, and was at least four times as cluttered.

"So?" The can of Ebony was lowered, just as an eyebrow was raised.

"So," Prompto repeated. "Are you making rings for your wedding?"

"Ah," the can of Ebony was raised again, this time drained and tossed into the trash can that was reserved for recyclables. "You've caught me. Yes, I'm making Gladio a ring."

"A ring for Gladio?" Prompto asked.

"Yes," Ignis answered simply.

"But you're not making not a ring for you?"

"...No," Ignis answered at length, "Not one for myself."

"Why not?"

Ignis shrugged his shoulders up in a very "Noct" sort of way, indicating how uncomfortable and confused the question actually made him. "I don't need one? I didn't think of it? What we plan on buying is good enough? I don't need a special ring? It wouldn't mean anything special to me." The last bit was sort of whispered, and Prompto knew that that was the ultimate reason. It wouldn't mean anything special to him, his goal was to make something that would mean something to Gladio. Something _for_ Gladio.

Yeah. Prompto supposed he should have thought about that. If he were in Ignis' shoes, he'd probably feel the same way. Because of that he could definitely see why Ignis would think that way. He could, but he wasn't the Ignis in this situation, instead he was closer to the Gladio in this situation. That gave him a whole other insight to how this would go down.

Frowning to himself, Prompto sunk down into his seat and even though he knew Ignis was going to shove them off an instant later he stuck his feet up on the desk. "You should make yourself a matching ring. Just. Hear me out, okay?"

"All right," Ignis agreed, his tone one of soft curiosity, even as he reached out and swatted at Prompto's feet. The swat did nothing to make Prompto move his feet. He only settled his heels down for a long haul. If Ignis didn't physically shove them off, they were staying. Ignis didn't shove. Instead he only glared at them. "I'm listening."

"Just. Like. Okay. I get it, right? You don't need a special ring. It's just for you, and you don't feel like you need it, right?"

"Correct."

"And yeah, I _totally_ get that, but. Think about this: If Gladio were the metal man, and he came home tonight with one ring for your wedding and said he didn't need one... Well? How would you feel?"

Prompto gave Ignis a minute to think it over, and he was for sure  _thinking_ it over. It had taken years but Prompto had finally learned all of Ignis' little micro-expressions that gave away some of the emotions he tended to keep locked up inside himself, hidden away from everyone other than his own mate. Those micro-expressions told Prompto the answer before Ignis actually looked him in the eye and said them. "I would feel hurt and sad."

"Why?"

"Because..." Ignis began reluctantly, "Because he would be putting me first. He would be making it seem like I was more important, when I'm not. It's a marriage, we're supposed to be equal. I'm not more important, and I wouldn't like being reminded that he feels I am every time I saw my ring."

"Tell me, Iggy, what does that mean?"

Ignis sighed. It was more of a huff really. He'd lost the discussion, in his own way, and Prompto knew Ignis hated to lose, just as much as any other dominant werewolf. Perhaps he even hated it more. "I suppose that means I'd better start making a matching ring in my size."

"Bullseye," Prompto said with a smile and finger guns pointed right at Ignis' heart. Ignis smiled and chuckled at his pun and movements, which had been the whole point of doing it.

Prompto wasn't physically there, when Ignis handed over the rings to Gladio. He wasn't there to see the initial reaction, but he'd certainly felt it in his chest. It was joy, and love, and a fondness that filled the chest and warmed the toes. He'd been at the shelter, waiting for Noctis to get off his shift, and though it hadn't been quite time, the feelings had driven Noctis out from the back room, and Prompto had found himself thoroughly and happily kissed, the feeling of each other's own rings pressing against their fingers as their hands slid together.

"They're beautiful," Gladio said later, when Prompto asked what they looked like. "They're like yours, yours and Noct's. Bands of metal. Mine's iron, I think, and his is copper." The words were simple, such simple metals, used more for mundane things than jewelry, but Gladio made them sound like gold and platinum. Precious and beautiful

Prompto pressed his head up against Gladio's chin and relished in the feeling of security and warmth it gave him. "Do they have stones to match our eyes?"

"Yeah," Gladio rumbled happily. The sound vibrated pleasingly through the top of Prompto's head. "Blue and brown for me, gold and green for him." Gladio closed his eyes as sleep began to creep on them both before he added in a whisper. "I can't wait to wear it every single day."

"Less than a week now."

"I know. Can't wait."

It was funny, how it wasn't even his wedding, but Prompto couldn't wait either. He couldn't wait until they were all wearing Ignis' rings, a physical symbol of the bond they all shared. If the soft thrum of emotion he felt down their pack bonds was any indication, Noctis and Ignis felt the same way as well. 

They couldn't wait.


	3. Rings, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto doesn't always feel insecure, but when he does he has Ignis show him how his brain is lying to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday!
> 
> Here's part three. It takes place about **a year** after part two.
> 
> Enjoy. <33333

"Does it ever bother you?"

"I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific, Darling." A mug of cocoa practically overflowing with marshmallows was sat in front of him. Prompto reached for it with a smile that he didn't quite mean. "Does what ever bother me?"

He waited until Ignis had sat down across from him with his coffee before he answered. His hands idly stirred the marshmallows into the cocoa so that they'd begin to melt. "I mean. You and Gladio are married, and I'm married to Noct."

"That's true."

"And," he sighed, "I'm mated to Gladio, and you're mated to Noct."

"That is also true."

"But us," Prompto bit his lip and gestured between them. "We're nothing." Prompto wasn't sure when the thought had hit him. Perhaps it hadn't. Perhaps it had taken its time to form in his head, like mold growing on a piece of bread. Slow at first and then all at once. It must have at least started weeks ago, maybe even months. They were mated and married, but there were no other titles to be given. There were no advancement to be given in their relationship. They were lovers and friends, but he'd been those things with Noct and Gladio too before they'd become more. There was no more to give to Ignis. He wished there were.

"Prompto, We are not _nothing_." Ignis was getting up from his seat with that look on his face, and no, no, no, that wasn't what Prompto wanted. To disturb him. To worry him. He didn't want to be fretted over, but Ignis sat down in the seat closest to him anyway. Ignis reached out with a hand and sat it on his elbow where a flood of warmth and comfort genuinely meant and freely given overtook him. The sensation almost made him cry. "Society may not comprehend what we are, but they don't recognize what Noct and I are either, or you and Gladio. Society does not have to understand. We understand. Besides," Ignis gave his captive elbow a squeeze. "We're packmates, and that is a closer and more intimate relationship than most humans can ever say they have with anyone."

At that, Prompto smiled, his heart lightening a little in his chest. "That's fair," he said a little meekly. "But you get where I'm coming from, right?"

"I do, but I don't think it's something to worry about. I've never considered you my lesser lover."

"Good, because I don't think you're lesser to me either."

"I'm glad we're agreed then." His arm was given a small pat before Ignis moved his hand away to pick up his mug. Prompto mimicked the motion with his own mug. "Do you feel better now?"

"A little."

"That's a start." Ignis drank from his mug while he pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it. "I have some time before I need to head into the cafe. Why don't we spend that time in bed?"

That got Prompto's attention, "Are we talking cuddle and nap time in bed or are we talking morning sex in bed?"

Ignis got that little smirk at the corner of his mouth that just drove Prompto wild whenever he saw it. "Your choice, but I only have time for one of the two."

"Is that a challenge?"

That little smirk grew a bit bigger, and Prompto grinned. Yeah. Yeah it was. That was _totally_ a challenge. Challenge beyond accepted. "Why don't you finish your drink and meet me in my room? I'll wait."

Of course, Prompto left his cocoa abandoned and ended up tumbling into bed with Ignis beneath him, their lips locked together and all thoughts of inadequacy forgotten, which Prompto was sure had been Ignis' goal in the first place.

It was actually months before he thought about it again, that feeling that there was something a little separate between him and Ignis. It came after his and Noct's anniversary, which, to be totally honest, Noct wasn't big into, but it was still a special day. There was that and there was a day in September that he and Gladio celebrated together, for that was the anniversary of their mating, but he kept thinking about how he and Ignis didn't have their own day, so when Ignis asked for a date with just him, Prompto was elated.

"I must admit," Ignis confessed as he refused (for the third time) the cotton candy Prompto was trying to make him eat. "I didn't ask you out alone today just because I wanted to spend time with you."

"Ah, but spending time with me _was_ part of it." Prompto shoved the bit of sugary fluff into his mouth and relished at how it melted almost instantly. How could Ignis not like cotton candy? It seemed practically impossible. Oh well, he would just have to make sure to buy two more funnel cakes later. Ignis loved those.

"That, Darling, is always part of it." Ignis' fingers trailed gently along his cheek. Prompto relished in that too.

"So what was the other part?"

"I have something to give to you, and I wanted you all to myself when I did."

"Greedy," Prompto teased.

"Indeed, but please indulge my selfishness this once."

Prompto would always indulge Ignis' selfishness. He so rarely let it shine, that desire for things just for him, or just wanting things at all. He was so much the sort of man who indulged them that anytime Ignis asked for something he wanted for himself was actually a special treat for them. He knew Gladio felt that way too, and Noct's pet project always seemed to be to get Ignis to say more of his personal desires. It was still, as ever, a work in progress.

"So what did you get me?"

"I wouldn't say "get" is the right word, but," Ignis fished around in his pants' pocket and then held his hand out to drop the object into Prompto's own hand which was still sticky from the cotton candy. "I do hope you like it." It was a ring box, small and blue, and Prompto dropped the giant bag of cotton candy in his haste to open it. There really was a ring inside, but not a ring like Prompto had ever seen before. It was made of multiple metals, none of them smooth and none of them the same shape. Prompto had to look closer to take in the different little shapes he saw. There was a small cat's head, a fish, a camping lamp, a flower, a bird, a camera, a knife, and a pan, all trailing out from a slightly larger wolf's head. Each little shape had a stone in it, some were dark blue, some were light blue, some were green, and some were brown. "Is this...us?"

"Our lives together," Ignis clarified. "All of our lives together." He held out his hand, palm up. "May I?" Prompto nodded as he handed the ring and its box back over. Ignis took them, and then took Prompto's hand, his right hand, and slid the ring into it's proper place. A rush of warmth and love overwhelmed him completely, and Prompto began to cry in earnest, unable to hold back the feelings inside him any longer.

"You magicked it," he managed to get out between soft sobs. "You asshole. You magicked it."

Ignis laughed, even as he took Prompto into his arms and rubbed his back through the tears. "I did. I enchanted it to give you all my love for you, whenever you want. So that you can never doubt it again."

"You did this to prove a point!" He accused, trying to sound angry about it even though he knew the tears totally ruined the effect.

"Yes, I did. Did I do a decent job?"

"Yes," he sniffled, and Ignis laughed again, those warm arms tightening around him. "Did you make one for you too?"

"I did," Ignis drew back, only a little and yet too much at the same time. He pulled his ring's match out of another pocket. "It's not enchanted with your love, but truth be told, I need you there to help me with that."

Prompto laughed, his face still wet with happy tears. He took the ring right out of Ignis' hand, and he trembled with joy as he took his hand as pushed the ring into place. "You have me. Always."

Ignis leaned forward and pressed his lips to Prompto's forehead. "Always."


	4. Insecure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gladio never sees Noctis in the Library, so why is he here today?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday! <3
> 
> Technically, this is actually "Rings, Part Four," but since it wasn't from Prompto's POV I decided that title wasn't appropriate. 
> 
> This chapter is from **Gladio's POV** , and the main pairing is **GladNoct**. It takes place about **a month** after _Rings, Part Three_.
> 
> Enjoy! <3

Of his three packmates, Noctis was the one Gladio never expected to see at the library. A couple of years ago, Prompto had discovered the joy of audiobooks, and so he was in the library at least once a week checking out one book or another to listen to on his morning runs. Ignis came in even more often, not usually to check out a book, though he sometimes did that too, but to pick Gladio up from work on his way home from the cafe. If Noct came into the library at all, he was with one of the others, and he never so much as touched a book, almost as though he thought they would burn him like silver.

Naturally, Gladio was surprised to see that Noct had wandered into the library on his own. He looked a bit lost and more than a bit scared.

Noctis, who was a werewolf alpha, a powerful magician, a warrior in his own right, and had had a hand defeating one of the biggest threats werewolves had ever known, was terrified stepping inside a library.

It made Gladio chuckle inside, and, yes, perhaps he should have stepped out from his spot in the children's section where he'd been reshelving picture books, but he stayed put, and waited to see what Noctis would do next.

It was rather clear that Noctis was looking for him, rather than any book, and Gladio found it very entertaining to watch him wander, his feet taking tiny steps, his head swiveling around like an owl's as he looked around. Normally, he knew Noctis would find him by scent, but he'd been working at the library for years now, and Gladio knew his scent was fairly evenly distributed around the building, and finding him based on that alone would be like trying to find them by scent in their home- nearly impossible.

Option two would normally be to call out for him, but this was a library, and Gladio knew that he, as well as the other librarians would happily "shush" anyone speaking too loudly. Following that cliche was truly one of the highlights of a librarian's life.

Gladio was sure that Noct was aware of the cliche. Gladio was also sure Noctis did not want to be shushed.

Option three was asking someone else where he might be. Noctis couldn't even ask his own mate for help with something as simple as "Where did you put the chips?" There was no way Noctis was going to ask a stranger where Gladio was. It would be a little extreme to use magic or to track him via their packbond, like he'd been kidnapped, and that meant they were left with option four. Option four was simply look around until Noctis found him.

It took Noct almost five minutes to navigate his way through the library. To Gladio's eternal glee, he walked right past the aisle he was in first, straight off into the historical fiction section, which...was fair, and actually sort of satisfying to see. Historical fiction was his favorite after all, and Noct was showing that he remembered that. It was sweet. In it's own way.

When Noctis didn't find him there, he seemed to simply resort to process of elimination, walking up and down aisles until, finally, he came to the children's section. Noctis stopped short upon seeing Gladio and his grin. "You've been here the whole time, haven't you?"

"Sure have."

"Just watching me struggle?"

"Yep."

"I hate you. A little."

"I know," Gladio laughed, "But you gotta admit, you would have done the same thing to me."

Noctis sighed, hands coming up to rub his eyeballs deeper into his skull. "Yeah. I would've. In a heartbeat." Gladio watched Noctis, still radiating terror, shift from foot to foot, hands shoved back into his pants' pockets, and the mood rubbed off on Gladio a little, his own arms coming up to cross over his chest.

"Is something wrong?" It didn't really feel like it. Sure, Noct was afraid, but that was the library itself. He'd never liked it much, too many words, too much "smart". The other pack bonds were quiet. They weren't eerily quiet, just the normal sort of "nothing to report" quiet. Ignis would still be at the cafe this time of day, and it was the time of year where the overachievers were already getting their senior pictures done, so Prom was fairly busy scouting out spots to take new "dynamic" pictures out. Nothing felt wrong, but there was always the possibility...

Of course, Gladio reminded himself, he didn't have a shit alpha. If something was really, _really_ wrong, Noctis would have marched right on in here screaming, shushing be dammed.

"Nothing," Noct confirmed honestly. "Just. Wanted to get you alone for a minute. Not a crime, is it?"

" 'Course not," Gladio frowned, not liking the defensive tone Noct was taking. He didn't have to be defensive, not with him, not with any of his pack. "So what's up?"

Noctis took in a deep breath, a steadying breath, and then he began to ramble like he was Prompto. "So, do you remember that time about a month ago when Prom and Specs went to the fair, and they came back with matching rings?" All of that might as well have all been said as one word, for how quickly he spoke. It took Gladio aback. He was used to the way that his mate rambled when he got nervous. It was a normal thing, cute even, when it wasn't worrying. It wasn't normally how Noct acted. When Noct was nervous he clammed up, bottled up. Gladio wasn't sure whether to take this as a good sign, or a bad one.

Regardless, the answer was, "Yeah?" He definitely remembered that, even before they'd gone, he'd thought it odd. Ignis was older than roller coasters and rides like the ones at county fairs, and he'd never really had much interest in them. He should have known that Ignis'd had something special in mind. At the time, he'd found the rings he'd made fascinating, but what did that have to do with right here, right now?

"Well, I talked to Specs about it later, and as it turns out, Prom had been feeling insecure about their relationship. Like he thought he was Ignis' least favorite, because they weren't really 'tied together.' "

That, unfortunately, sounded like his mate. It was sad, but he still didn't see what it had to do with right here and now. "And?"

"I don't want you to ever feel that way about us."

"Noct--" He was cut off before he could get a single reassurance out. He was cut off by a scene that brought him right back to a moment that, damn, Gladio was starting to realize was over fifteen years ago. Noctis, standing in front of him, unable to meet his eyes, hand thrust out with a ring box held between his fingers.

"Take it."

Gladio did, gently, and when he opened it he found a ring inside. Not one of Ignis' creations. This was relatively simple, and, plainly put, his husband didn't do simple. Even the wedding bands he'd made for the four of them weren't as simple as they seemed, carefully inlaid with meticulously selected stones, hand poured, and the molds probably handmade. This was something else entirely. Not Ignis' work. That wasn't to say it wasn't beautiful, with a giant tiger eye in the center of it, surrounded by whorls of wire, but someone else had made this.

"Specs said wire wrapping is one of the oldest methods of jewelry making." After a quick, self conscious shrug of his shoulders, Noctis added. "He also said I might do better with wire than molten metal, so, I guess there's that."

"So wait. _You_ made this? For me?"

There was that little shrug again, as though this wasn't a big deal at all. "I guess? Specs helped." A pause. "Do you like it?"

"You made it. I love it." It could have been the ugliest ring on the face of the planet, and Gladio would have still loved it. Noctis had gone out of his way to make this for him. It was special enough when Ignis had made the rings they wore on their fingers. It was a skill he hadn't touched since Noct had been born, but the truth was that it was still a skill he'd already had. This though - Noctis had gone out of his way to learn something new for him. It was a skill he'd perhaps never use again. It was incredibly special. "I can't tell you what it means, that you did this."

"So you'll wear it?"

Gladio lifted the ring up and out of the box and then gently set it on the proper finger. It fit perfectly. "Iggy did a good job teaching you."

Before he knew it, he was being hugged. Noct's arms felt small and spindly around him, but his nose was almost painfully sharp against his sternum. "I love you, you know. I know we aren't the closest. I know we don't go on solo dates as much, and I don't sleep with you a lot, but I love you. Don't forget."

Suddenly, Gladio realized this was way more about Noct's own insecurity about possibly being Gladio's least favorite than it was about Gladio being Noct's least favorite. "I know." Gladio ran his hand up and through Noct's hair, where his new ring snagged on a couple of strands. "I love you too." How could he convey that he knew? How could he convey that he knew Noctis slept with Prompto more because he often physically needed it and with Ignis for his emotional neediness, and Gladio didn't have either of those needs as much? How could he convey that he cherished those weekends spent camping and fishing alone more than any other thing they could do together because it just meant so much to both of them? How could he convey that waking up to find that Noctis had crawled into bed with him to cuddle was endearing, and warm, and he loved it?

He felt like he couldn't, and so they stood there just holding each other.

They stood there for a small eternity before Noctis finally moved back, his arms slipping away and leaving Gladio with cold spots where they'd been. "I suppose I should let you get back to work, huh?"

Gladio grinned, "These books won't reshelf themselves."

"See you at dinner?"

"Yeah," Gladio said, before he leaned himself down and kissed his alpha's forehead. "I'll see you at home." He could feel Noct's smile through their bond, and for now that was enough.


	5. False Rumors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone knows that Ignis and Coctura have a special bond, but only Gladio thinks he's figured out what that bond actually is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday to you all! <3
> 
> As you might have figured out from the summary, this chapter is **Gladnis**. It's also from **Gladio's POV**. It takes place roughly **six years** after the end of _Finding Home_.
> 
> Enjoy. <33333

There were rumors that Ignis was dating Coctura.

For all that Gladio found those rumors laughable, on the odd occasion that he found himself in the cafe, he could see where the rumors came from. Ignis was known for being something of a hardass boss. Not that he was unfair, but that he didn't take excuses, and frankly expected things to be up to the high standard he set. When watched, it was fairly obvious that he had a soft spot for Coctura. Not, Gladio knew, that she didn't deserve said soft spot. Of all the people he'd originally hired to work in the cafe, Coctura was the only one still on staff with him. Not only that, but she had definitely proven herself during the time following Ardyn's attack at the shop all those years ago now.

Gladio wasn't exactly sure what Ignis felt for Coctura, and he was using this time sitting in the cafe to try and figure it out. It was certainly love, of a fashion, but whether it was the sort of love he felt for a sibling, like Gladio to Iris, or the fatherly sort of love Regis had for Noctis, Gladio wasn't sure. Familial, for sure, rather than romantic. Unlike Prompto, or even Gladio himself, Ignis had no interest in women like that, and beyond that, _everyone_ knew that Ignis wore a wedding band. He was taken, even more thoroughly than most people knew, but people ( _"Heterosexuals,"_ as Noctis would correct with a roll of his eyes) couldn't look at a man and a woman of a similar physical age so much as smile at one another without whispering "They are definitely fucking."

In the wind down before closing time, Gladio watched Ignis and Coctura dance around each other with practiced ease, and yeah, Gladio saw where the rumors came from. They were comfortable with each other on a level that most people weren't unless they were very close. If this had been another year in another time, Gladio might have even been a little jealous at how Ignis' personal bubble didn't activate around her. Nowadays, instead of being jealous, Gladio could smile about it, because Ignis didn't let a lot of people that close. It good to see him do it with anyone.

The bell rang, indicating a customer, and Gladio turned around in his seat to look. They weren't actually closed yet, and a couple of stragglers in the last little bit wasn't too surprising, so Gladio didn't bother to think much about it. Ignis continued his cleaning, and Coctura went on up to the counter. The stranger looked normal, if not familiar, and Gladio turned back around in his seat, just as Ignis came around with the coffee pot, emptying its contents into Gladio's mug.

"You don't actually expect me to drink the dregs of the pot black, do you?"

In answer, a small pot of creamer was semi slammed into the tabletop along with the word "Heathen," hissed between Ignis's teeth. There was no ire in his voice though, only a tease. Gladio grinned at the jab, and...perhaps not so subtly watched Ignis' ass as he walked back behind the counter. Gladio thought Ignis looked best in those dark wash jeans he'd taken to, but his work slacks did a very nice job outlining his legs and butt too. Maybe, if he played his cards right, Ignis would let him take them off later.

"I'd rather not, thank you."

The cafe hadn't been loud before, but with those words from Coctura's mouth it seemed like the entire shop went silent. Gladio twisted around in his seat again, and Ignis was already (overly gently, Gladio noticed) putting the dishes he'd been carrying on the counter and came up behind Coctura.

"Excuse me. Is something wrong?"

Coctura, face set in determined stone, looked between her boss and the customer before saying, "Yes. He asked me for my number."

"I see." A flash of seething white anger went through their pack bond before Ignis continued. "And am I to assume that you aren't interested?"

"I am not."

This was where the customer stupidly interjected. "Don't be like that, babe! It's just your number!"

"Would you like me to take over?"

"Yes."

"Splendid. Please take the dishes into the back and continue the washing up."

"Got it." Coctura had to maneuver a little to get around Ignis, but she managed easily enough, and the dishes Ignis had discarded were picked up before she disappeared beyond the door that separated the front from the back.

Once the door had swung shut, Ignis settled in behind the counter and asked. "What can I get for you?"

Don't be an idiot, Gladio thought to himself as he watched. The guy had already been an idiot, but surely he had to know he was standing on his last half leg with Ignis. Surely he wouldn't poke the bear even more--

"Dude, you were supposed to help me there."

\--And he of _course_ poked the bear.

"Oh?" Ignis was smiling. It was his dangerous smile. It wasn't even directed at him, and Gladio kind of wanted to run. "And how was I supposed to help you? By allowing you sexually harass my employee? By forcing her to do something she did not want to?"

The sound the man made sort of reminded Gladio of the offended little titters that cheerleaders in high school did. It was really a pathetic sound. "That wasn't sexual harassment! That was just asking for her number! It's not a crime!"

"No. It's not, but she said no. No does not mean try harder. No means no. And now you can get out of my shop."

"Man, what is your problem? Are you two like a thing? Like I'm not picky, I can share--"

Later, much later, Ignis would lament the fact that he'd let his dominant werewolf side get the better of him. He should have kept better control of himself, he'd say. He shouldn't have punched him. Gladio, on the other hand, would always cherish the image of Ignis very simply leaning over the counter and decking the guy in the face. Sure, it could have come back with an assault charge, but men like that were always cowards. It'd be fine.

Gladio did, however, get up and cross the room before Ignis could decide to take it even further. "Iggy. You want me to take out the trash?"

For a second, Ignis didn't answer, he was too busy checking his split knuckles, which were already healing up, even as Gladio glanced at them. "Please," he said at length. "Be my guest."

Gladio happily grabbed the man by the scruff of his jacket and hauled him off to the door only a few feet away. Outside, the asshole scrambled to his feet, and Gladio managed a probably menacing looking smile at him. "Seriously, don't come back. My _husband_ ," he let that word sink in for a second before he continued, "Has a knack for remembering faces."

The man ran like the coward he was, muttering half threats under his breath. Said half threats sounded especially pathetic, considering how his swollen nose made affected the way the words sounded coming out of his mouth. Once Gladio couldn't hear the muttering anymore, he shut the cafe door and locked it. It still wasn't quite closing time, but he didn't think Ignis would get mad at him for deciding they didn't need anymore customers tonight.

In the kitchen area, Coctura was still washing up, and Ignis was putting things away. He was also carefully making sure that Coctura didn't see his busted knuckles, Gladio was positive. "I can wash up here," Gladio said, "Why don't you take Coctura home now?"

"I don't wanna be--"

"Nah," Gladio said, determined to not let her put herself in the shoes of someone who had done something wrong. She smelled of fear, terror, and self loathing. Nope. Not letting that go on. "He didn't touch you, but he made it clear he didn't respect you or your space, and that's terrifying enough, yeah?" Slowly, Coctura nodded her head, hands still stuck deep into the soapy water. "Let Iggy take you home now. He'll make sure you get home safe, and then you can start again tomorrow. Okay?"

"Okay."

Hands were dried, and Coctura grabbed her bag from its hook before they left, Ignis' hand firmly, but comfortingly, on her shoulder. The bell rung as they left, and Gladio locked the door again before he stuck his own hands into the dishwater. By the time the door unlocked and Ignis returned some twenty minutes later, Gladio was spraying the leftover bubbles out of the sink.

"Thank you, Gladio."

"For what?"

Ignis tsked at him, and Gladio couldn't help but smile. "You know what."

"Not being an absolute fucking douche bag?"

Ignis smiled a little, just a little. "Among other things, but I was mostly referring to allowing me to take her home. I also suppose I ought to thank you for finishing the washing up, though I also feel I ought to kick you since you don't work here."

"We're married, aren't we?"

"We are."

"Your dishes are my dishes."

Ignis laughed. It the laugh Gladio had spent years missing. It was the laugh that made him want to press Ignis against the wall and kiss it off his lips so he could feel it for himself down to his toes. "Now you're just being ridiculous."

They smiled at each other for a moment, but then Gladio found himself stepping into Ignis' space, hand held out. "Let me see." Ignis held out his hand without complaint, and Gladio ran his thumb over the knuckles. There was dried blood to be wiped off, but the wounds themselves were all but gone already. Normal. Good. "How you feeling?"

"Wound up," Ignis replied, tugging at his hand a little before Gladio released it.

"How 'bout I wind you up in a totally different way?" Gladio grinned, pushing his desire down their shared bond, and felt a little thrill in his chest when Ignis grinned back at him that feeling of desire pushing back.

"Dinner first."

"Wine and dine? I can do that." Not that this hadn't already been the plan. It was their date night, after all, but now it meant a little bit more. Now it was something that Ignis _needed_ , and not just something they'd planned and desired.

Ignis left to put the last couple of things away for the evening, and then the OPEN sign was officially turned off.

"You did a great job, by the way, Iggy."

"With what?"

"Protecting your human pack." He'd figured it out then, when he'd seen Ignis' face just before he'd punched the asshole. "Her happiness and safety were threatened, and you protected her as her alpha, and then you made sure her needs were met afterwards. You did a great job."

Ignis sighed, but he leaned into Gladio's touch when he slid an arm over Ignis' shoulder. "Am I that obvious about her?"

"A little, but it's all good. You deserve human pack." Noctis had human pack at the shelter, and small fae pack, if you included Luna. Gladio would kill for the other librarians, and pretty much anyone Prompto had ever met was his. "Even if it's just Coctura."

"Someday she will leave."

"I know."

"I will miss her." The admission was soft, and sad, but Gladio was happy to hear the honesty in his voice. Ignis didn't speak his emotions aloud very often. "But I will be proud to see her succeed."

"Until then, she's yours. Even if she doesn't know it."

"Yes."

He leaned down to kiss the crown of his husband's head. "Now then, wine, dine, and then...back to bed?" He waggled his eyebrows with those last words, and Ignis laughed again.

"Yes. That sounds lovely."


	6. Guys' Night In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noctis learns that having a nice date doesn't always mean you have to leave the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday!
> 
> This chapter's pairing focus is **Promptis**. It's from **Noctis' POV**. It takes place about **eight months** after the end of _Finding Home_.
> 
> Please enjoy! <333

Noctis had barely gotten his shoes kicked off before Prompto was all up in his space, grinning and vibrating with excitement. "We should do something tonight."

"Isn't it Specs and Gladio's night out?" It was a rhetorical question. Of course it was. They'd known it all week that they had plans to go see some stage show or another that neither Noctis or Prompto had any interest in. The option to go together had been there, but why suffer through a Shakespeare play when he could get more enjoyment from just sleeping at home?

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean we can't do something too!"

"I dunno, Prom. I'm kind of tired." It wasn't a lie. He'd wanted to make sure Ignis stayed up all through the show, so he'd been sort of being uneven with their energy sharing - giving Ignis more energy and leaving himself sort of lacking. His mate would probably scold him for it later, but it would be worth it to know Ignis had enjoyed a long evening out.

"I didn't say we had to go _out_." Prompto pouted at him, and Noctis instantly felt his resolve crumbling. There went his nap, at least until Prompto said, "Take a nap. I'll have everything ready by the time you wake up! Pleasssseeee?"

"Fine."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Prompto hugged him tight, arms squeezing around his waist, face nuzzled into his shoulder. He then bolted right out of the room without so much as a "bye." Noctis sighed. He had a feeling he was probably going to regret this, but Prompto had said they didn't need to go out. How was he supposed to say no to their omega? Keeping his pack safe and happy was his purpose, but maintaining Prompto's smile definitely took up a bit more space and time. If their omega wasn't happy, none of them were. It was just a fact.

Noctis had just finished changing out of his work clothes when the bedroom door creaked open just a tiny bit. "Go on. You wanna go take a nap with daddy, right? Go on." Noctis couldn't help but snort a little at Prompto's baby talk voice, but his heart sure melted with cute as Babydoll ran inside and jumped neatly up on the bed.

"You wanna take a nap too, huh?" Baby mewed at him before she flopped over on her side. "Sounds good to me."

It was dark when he woke up later, Baby tucked under one arm purring softly. He was warm, and comfy. He didn't really want to get up, but he'd promised Prompto so he moved. A rush of colder air hit him as he slid out from under the covers, and he barely paused to brush his hair before he went out the door. The doorbell rang the moment he set foot in the living room, and Prompto sprung up from his spot on the couch. "Be right back!"

Not two minutes later he returned, arms laden in pizza boxes that honestly smelled divine. It wasn't their normal pizza place, Noctis thought. Both the logo on the boxes and the smell was wrong. Said boxes were dropped on the coffee table and a plate from the cupboard was handed over.

"Welcome to Guys' Night In!"

"Guys' Night In?"

"Yeah! You know how girls have "Girls' Night Out?" Well. I decided this is "Guys' Night In." It's gonna be our thing."

"We're not gonna do facial masks and those quizzes from teenage magazines, are we?"

"Not the plan! But we could, if you wanted." Prompto batted his eyelashes at him, and in return Noctis laughed.

"Pass."

Prompto plugged in one of his Spotify playlists, and they sat on the couch eating pizza and listening to music. The pizza was good, so good that Noctis was pretty sure they had a new regular pizza place, and the music... "Does every song on this playlist have a reference to wolves?"

"You bet it does!"

Noctis snorted. "You're such a nerd."

"You like it."

"Maybe a little." Or maybe a lot, because he more than _liked_ Prompto, but those weren't words he was gonna say. Not right now.

Prompto threw his plate onto the coffee table and wiped his greasy hands on his jeans (that was going to earn him a scoff from Ignis later, no doubt.) "Come dance with me!"

"What?"

"Dance. With me. Come on, Noct." Prompto had bounced up to his feet and was even doing the cheesy as hell extended hand. "It'll be fun!"

"I'm. Not the greatest at dancing..." Memories of his childhood briefly flooded his mind. Afternoons spent with Ignis learning every formal dance in the book. Lots of toes that had been stepped on. No, he'd never been very good at it.

Of course, his words had no effect on Prompto. "Oh come on, and I am? Besides! I've danced with Iggy, and Gladio, but you have evaded me! I must put an end to that!"

Noctis rolled his eyes, but the swell in his heart was fond, and he knew Prompto could feel it. "Fine. One dance."

"Score!" He put his hand in Prompto's extended one, and he was pulled to his feet.

The music playing from the speakers was hardly what one would consider good for slow dancing, but it was all that Prompto seemed to know so that was what he'd gone for. Noctis couldn't stand it for long. "Okay. I'm teaching you to at least swing dance. Not tonight. Not here. But I'm gonna."

"Waltz too much for you?"

"It's so. _Slow_. At least by the time I was born there was the Charleston."

"I bet Iggy hates the Charleston."

"He does. Just the Charleston tho. Anything more modern he just finds amusing. I think." Noctis shrugged. It wasn't really as though Ignis had danced a lot in his time. Noctis had learned all the new dances, but Ignis not so much. Ignis had just made sure Noctis could dance at any function he might need to, and once he'd learned...well. That had been that. He suddenly wanted to make Ignis dance a lot more.

"Maybe we should take a class."

"Really?"

"Come on. It might be fun."

"Maybe." The song changed, and Noctis wrinkled his nose. "Selena Gomez? Really?!"

"Wolves, Noct. _Wolves_." Prompto pulled him into a nameless dance then. It was nameless, but it was fast and fun. By the end of the song they were both sprawled out on the floor. Noctis was laughing. Prompto was panting. "Are you dizzy too?"

"Nope."

"No fair," Prompto whined before he pulled himself back up and finally turned the music off. "No more Selena Gomez for a while."

"Best idea I think I've ever heard." They rearranged themselves back on the couch, boneless and tangled up in each other.

"Hey, Noct?"

"Hm?"

"Are you having a good time?"

Noctis huffed out a small laugh. "Yeah, I am." He tugged at Prompto's shirt collar, pulling him over so that they could kiss. Prompto was always such a hungry kisser. There was something so desperate about it  that always made you feel wanted in a way that Noctis loved. He allowed himself to get lost in it, trying to keep up with the pace of Prompto's kisses against him, pushing, pulling, touching, and until he found that they had moved their positions around. He found himself in Prompto's lap, straddling his legs, fingers tangled deep in his hair. The intensity of Prompto's gaze on him was too much, and Noctis shyly shoved his face against his neck. He kissed there softly instead.

"We could continue this in my room, if you wanted." His arms shook nervously as he said it. It wasn't the sort of offer he usually made - sex, but he liked how he could smell the effect the words had on Prompto. He could smell how the offer enticed him. Being able to smell how much Prompto wanted to say yes made it hurt a little when he felt him shake his head no.

"Thanks, but that's not part of the plan tonight."

"Okay," Noctis pulled his head away from Prompto's shoulder, yet made no move to get out of his lap. Not yet. "We've had pizza. We've danced,. What's the rest of your plan?"

Prompto's grin was almost too bright to behold. "Movie time!"

Noctis laughed, and the ache of rejection faded away a little. "What movie?"

"The first _Star Wars_ movie."

"Hm. Are we talking _A New Hope_? Or _The Phantom Menace_?"

"Dude, don't insult me!"

Noctis laughed again and leaned down to kiss Prompto's lips one more time before he forced himself to get up from his comfy spot. "Okay. I trust you."

His trust ended up being well founded as _A New Hope_ (which was totally the first _Star Wars_ movie, he would fight you.) began to play. Prompto made popcorn, and brought a blanket from his room. The ended up tangled up in each other again, and under the blanket Noctis wasn't sure where his legs ended and Prompto's began.  His cheek was definitely becoming one with Prompto's shoulder via osmosis. It was good, and warm, and he felt full and happy. The rejection didn't hurt anymore. This was a thousand times better than sex, even to Prompto, who had that insatiable sexual hunger. He knew this was better. He could feel it radiating through their bond.

Noctis had no idea when he fell asleep, but when he woke it was to Ignis' hand gently shaking him. "You're going to get a crick in your neck like that."

" 'Ssss fine."

"Noct." He opened his eyes again to look at Ignis' face, and then look beyond him to see that the movie had defaulted back the main menu. Damn, he wasn't even sure how far into it they'd gotten. He couldn't remember. He was warm and comfortable next to Prompto, but Ignis was right. He guessed. He lifted his arms in the air, and Ignis sighed. "You're such a child at times."

"Someone's gotta make up for the stick up your ass." The words were kind of slurred, but he knew Ignis understood, because he made a tsking sort of sound before Ignis pulled the blanket off of him and slid his arms under Noct's own and lifted him up.

"Everythin' okay, Iggy?"

"Everything is fine, Prompto. I'm just taking Noct to bed. I'll come back for you in a minute, if you'd like."

"...Kay."

Noctis clung around Ignis' neck, still sort of half asleep as Ignis made the walk to his room, it wasn't far, and he knew he wasn't too heavy. Ignis was still wearing his winter coat, and the cold outside air still sort of clung to him. It was perhaps the only reason he didn't fall back asleep before he hit his own bed. "How was _Hamlet_?" He finally thought to ask as he shifted around trying to maneuver himself under the blankets without actually standing up.

"We went to see _The Tempest_."

"Whatever. They're all the same, aren't they?"

"They most certainly are not." Ignis huffed at him. "But it was good. We had a nice night. It looks like you two had a nice night as well."

"Yeah." He finally settled and curled himself up against his pillow. "Guys' Night In." His eyelids were already growing heavy again.

"Sounds delightful."

Noctis was more asleep than awake when he said. "It was."


	7. Mental Bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the end, it would be something Ignis found both disconcerting and comforting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday! And Happy Easter, if you celebrate it.
> 
> This week's chapter is from **Ignis' POV**. The main pairing is **Ignoct** , and it takes place approximately **a year** after _Finding Home_ ends.
> 
> Please enjoy!

It had been a couple of days since Ignis had slept in bed with just Noctis. It wasn't a complaint, especially not when the reason for it was the full moon.

Ignis loathed the full moon. He was fairly certain that was a generic werewolf trait, but for him it was always just so much worse. For a while after they'd moved to Insomnia he'd tried to power through his lethargy the day before their monthly hunts, but then Ardyn had come along and scarred him and that had been the end of that.

He could see perfectly clearly now, that had been a fact for a while, but that scarring on his face lingered. It would remain for at least another year. Ignis had never considered himself a vain man, but looking in the mirror was now something he avoided. His pack might say that they didn't mind the mark (in fact Gladio teased about badges of honor and the like,) but Ignis couldn't bear to look. He could feel it. That didn't bother him, but seeing it was a whole different thing.

He supposed that was part of the nice thing about wanting to sleep all the time. He didn't see it in his sleep. In his dreams, when they were pleasant, he was always whole in a way he didn't feel even now. Luckily, so long as he was not the only one in his bed his dreams were mostly pleasant, even when the moon above made him toss and turn as it had a couple days before.

On those days they all slept together in Noctis' bed. That was all good and well, but there was something else satisfying about curling into bed with just his mate. Ah. His mate. The phrase was still so odd to him. It was a dream he still waited to wake from. It all was, really, but especially that. He'd raised Noctis, as his caretaker, but it had been eons since he'd been a child, no matter how the fits he still sometimes threw reminded him of one.

He'd had feelings for Noctis for a very long time, but he'd expected to die with them still being nothing but an ache in his chest or a thought in his head. That was part of his problem, even now - he lived too much in his own head. It was a problem Prompto shared, which gave them something of an understanding that he and Gladio and Noctis lacked a little. Not that Noctis didn't keep check on his emotions like they were a chained hound ready to attack at any moment. Not that it wasn't fair of him to do so.

His three packmates were still asleep. It was actually fairly late in the morning, but the three of them were still suffering from their full moon hangovers. Happily, Noctis didn't have to be at work until one, Prompto's appointments weren't until "perfect evening lighting," (whatever that was) and Gladio had somehow, blissfully, gotten three days off in a row. They all got to sleep in, but Ignis had a cafe he had to get too well before noon, although he'd already informed Coctura he'd be a bit late. One text, managing to wrestle himself out of Noctis' sleeping grasp, and getting dressed had been his three grand accomplishments for the morning. He was hoping to add "enticing his pack awake with the scent of breakfast" to the list.

He was thinking frittata. That, overall, wasn't a difficult or time consuming dish, and it had protein, as well as being easy to hide vegetables in. If he did it right, the smell would definitely reach his packmates, and soon he'd have them here, bleary eyes and all. Excellent.

Ignis had barely managed to get out oranges to squeeze and eggs to crack when he heard the whine. That was Noctis. He knew it was. No one else grumbled and bemoaned waking up in the morning like Noctis. He wasn't even the one who was actually tired and hurting all the time, but he still did it. As much as Ignis found it annoying at times it was also endearing, perhaps because he knew that if Noctis didn't complain about waking up something was definitely wrong.

_'Where is he?'_

The words were little more than a whisper in his ear, but they were startling for that very reason. They were words right in his _ear_ , spoken in Noctis' voice, even though Noctis was not there. For a second, Ignis seriously put thought into the idea that Noctis had somehow managed to sneak into the kitchen to play a small prank on him, but the idea was quickly discarded. Noctis simply was not in here. He would have heard or smelled him if he were, no matter how ingrained his scent was in the house.

_'I hate it when he does this.'_

The words were more sad than petulant, and a soft ache filled his chest for a moment. Where was this coming from? Noctis wasn't here, and he wasn't yelling from the bedroom. So how was it that he swore he could hear the words whispered in his...which ear? Left? Or right? The answer was an unsettling "both." He could that voice whispered in both his ears, or perhaps even between them - in his head. Ignis frowned at the thought.

Oranges and eggs were abandoned on the counter in favor of padding back off to Noctis' bedroom. He pushed the door open with a slight creak of a door that would soon need to be oiled. "Noct?"

"Specs?" The lump of blankets that was Noctis shifted. His sleepy eyes blinked blearily in the dim light. "What's up?"

"Are you quite all right?"

"Hm. Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?"

"I...heard you inside my head." Aloud the words sounded truly insane, he couldn't blame him when Noctis snorted with disbelief.

"And what did I say?"

Ignis licked his lips before he answered: "You asked where someone, perhaps me, was, and then said that you hate when they do this...whatever 'this' is."

That made Noctis sit up. "I. Did think that. Uh. Come here?" Ignis went, promptly sitting himself down nicely on his side of the bed. "I _was_ thinking about you. I woke up and you weren't here, and I...I hate that." Arms wrapped around his waist, trying to pull him back under the covers. Ignis allowed him to be pulled.

"My apologies. I'd just gotten up to make breakfast."

"I know," Noctis whined against his shoulder, where his nose was currently trying to become one with the end of his clavicle. "I just wish. I wish you'd wake me up first, let me know you're getting up. Even if I go back to sleep after."

Oh. Was. Was that all? "I...find that to be a reasonable request. I'll do that from now on. I promise, Noct." How could he say no to something so simple?

If possible, that sharp nose pressed itself even closer against his skin. "Okay."

"But this doesn't answer the question of why I heard you in the first place."

"IDK." Noctis actually said the letters I, D, and K. Ignis internally sighed. Prompto was rubbing off on him. "Probably magic. I'll ask Dad later."

Later ended up being after Noctis got back from his half shift at the shelter. They sat down at the dinner table, Noctis' phone on speaker between them. Regis always answered the phone when it was his son calling, and so it wasn't long before Ignis was explaining precisely what had happened that morning with Regis humming on the other end.

_"Aulea and I could do that too."_

Now that was an answer Ignis had not been expecting. "I don't suppose you happen to know why?"

_"She always assumed it was the mate bond, and I always sort of assumed it was the magic we shared. Perhaps it is a bit of both."_

"We couldn't do this yesterday. I mean, I'm not even sure I can do it on command now." Noctis was leaning against the table, fingers tangled up in his own hair as he talked. "I mean, if it were magic, or the bond, wouldn't it have showed by now? It's been over a year."

Ignis reached out and sat his hand on Noctis' elbow. _'Calm down,'_ he tried to project, and it must have worked, because Noctis flinched, but nodded his head shakily. He didn't actually calm down.

_"Ignis is still injured, is he not?"_

"I mean. Yeah?"

Noctis' eyes moved up his face, and Ignis looked away instantly, knowing those eyes were examining his scar. _'Don't look, don't look.'_   He thought it over and over again until Noctis spoke again.

"He's healing good enough though."

_"Perhaps that's why. He's well enough, and you now have enough energy for it."_

"Maybe."

The conversation pattered away from the topic of their newfound mental connection after that, and it wasn't long before Ignis excused himself from the table to start making dinner. He didn't try to listen in on their conversation, but he caught bits and pieces about general finances, and the events going on in the pack. He knew Noctis missed the old pack sometimes. It had been his pack since he'd been born, after all. They were truly his family, large as it was. He didn't visit enough. Perhaps he ought to encourage him to visit more. He should take Gladio with him. He could stay here with Prompto.

He was finally getting the chicken in the oven when Noctis said goodbye to Regis and hung up his phone. "Did you have a nice chat?"

"Yeah. It was okay."

"Just okay?"

He glanced over just in time to see Noctis do his shrug. "I guess. Things are good over there, and that's good." He paused. "Ignis?"

Ah. Full first name. That was always a little bit worrying. "Yes?"

"I think you're beautiful. Scars and all."

The knife nearly slipped from his hand, and it was an even nearer thing that he didn't slice off the tip of a finger with it. He must have _heard_ him earlier, when he'd been distressed over being looked at his face. "Noctis--" he began, but his mate was already up out of his seat and nearly out the front door.

The connection proved to not be an easy thing to master. It wasn't a complete invasion of privacy, passing stray thoughts wouldn't be passed on, you truly had to be _saying_ something in your mind. It also seemed to tune in and out like an old radio. Sometimes, when he tried to practice saying something to Noctis, it wouldn't work at all, Noctis couldn't hear him. Other times, it would be something he hadn't meant to share at all, and Noctis would hear. The same was true vise versa. Occasionally Noctis would ask about something he hadn't heard at all, but there were other times when he heard exclamations of frustration that he hadn't been meant to hear at all.

Meaning it seemed to help. Like a child screaming with emotion, feeling something for what he wanted to say seemed to be a spark between keeping it and sharing it. More than once something would upset him at the cafe and he found himself pulling his phone out to find messages of concern from Noctis. It was sweet in Noct's small way, and it made his heart smile.

It got a little easier as time went on, as things often did. Ignis simply assigned an emotion to whatever he wanted to say. He figured the emotions were like training wheels on a bike. Someday he wouldn't need them, but for now, they were necessary. He'd suggested that Noctis do the same. It was odd to make himself feel happy over asking Noctis to pick up milk, or to make himself very angry when he asked where he was, but it worked. It was just for now. Someday they wouldn't need the practice. Someday, they'd only use the bond for important things they couldn't convey by phone. That was someday, but today, they used it like children with tin cans and string, using their own coded language no one else understood.

When he thought of it like that, like a secret language just for them, it awakened a sort of thrill and nostalgia for something he'd never actually had. When Prompto told him he was "super jealous" the feeling only doubled. Something just for them. How wonderful.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm all right." Ignis promised from his place on the bed. "Just tired." He knew Noctis could feel the drain. They did share their energy between them, after all.

"You still trying to evict that woman from Apartment Two?"

"Yes," he sighed. "And she is definitely not going without a fight."

"I'm sorry."

"It is certainly not your fault that she thinks she can live in my property without paying the rent."

"Still. Sorry." Out came Noctis' phone. "Don't worry about dinner tonight, okay? I'll have Gladio pick food up on his way home. Thai sound good?"

"That sounds excellent."

"Cool. You just rest." Noctis wandered out of the room to text Gladio, and Ignis closed his eyes. Normally he loathed the idea of just resting while his pack needed to be fed or there were things to be done, but today he truly was exhausted. The dishes would still be there in the morning, and they hadn't had Thai in a while. He turned over and settled into his head for a nap. Gladio was working the late shift at the library today, and that meant he wouldn't be home for at least a couple more hours. He had time to rest his eyes.

He'd almost drifted off when he heard it. _'I love you.'_

Ignis opened his eyes. He turned over just in time to see Noctis leaning over the bed with Babydoll in his arms. The cat was offered to him. She meowed pitifully as she changed hands, and Ignis laid back down with her tucked against his chest. She purred.

_'I love you so much, Ignis.'_

He felt Noctis' weight climb into bed with him. He felt his mate spoon him from behind, his forehead rested against his spine.

_'I love you too, Noctis.'_

"Oh good." The spoken words tickled against his skin. "I was worried you weren't hearing me."

"No," Ignis said as he closed his eyes once again. "I think those are words I'll always hear when you say them."

"I hope so. I didn't say them for so long. Now, I can't say them enough."

Well, Ignis thought as he started to drift off to the sound of Babydoll's purring, that made two of them.


	8. Not Quite a Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, something bad needs to happen to get the ball rolling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday!
> 
> This chapter takes place approximately **five months** after the end of _Finding Home_ and the main pairing is **Promptio**. It is told from **Gladio's POV**.
> 
> Please enjoy. <3

To say that it was the absolute best way to spend an evening was probably a bit of an overstatement, but there definitely something very relaxing about being curled up on the couch next to Ignis while they both read. They were the only ones in the house, except for Babydoll of course, and it was quiet.

Noctis was off spending "girl" time with Luna. There had been a movie she had wanted to see and Cindy had not, so Noctis had been the next person on her list of people to invite. Truth be told, it sounded like a chick flick that Noctis was probably not overly interested in either, but they hadn't been able to spend much time together since the disastrous gala. Gladio definitely couldn't blame him for taking any chance he could get to spend time with his best friend.

As for Prompto, tonight he had a gig. Late autumn weddings weren't really a 'thing,' but Prompto had told him that this particular wedding had already started dipping into the winter theme, though luckily not the horrendous _holiday_ theme. Cliche cheesy theme or no, it was good money and a good job for Prompto. Gladio had never heard the names before, but Ignis said they were an up and coming power couple in the Insomnia social scene. Of course Ignis would know. It was pretty much his job to know shit like that.

So, Noctis was stuck watching movies about girls gushing and guys being assholes, and Prompto was stuck taking pictures of people dancing and probably mashing cake into each others' faces. That was fine, Ignis' sight was finally good enough to actually sit down and read a book again without getting a headache, and Gladio definitely didn't mind the increasing weight against his side as Ignis slowly but surely began to fall asleep while he read.

There was only one problem with the evening as a whole: For about an hour now there had been a knot of nerves deep in his gut. It wasn't his. Gladio had nothing to really be nervous about. His life was good, the best it had been a long time even. No, the bundle of nerves was Prompto. Ignis didn't feel it, and if Noct felt it, he was locked away in a movie theater with nothing he could do about it without leaving, but Gladio suspected he was actually the only one who felt it. Prompto was his mate after all, there was little they could hide from one another, even when Prompto actively tried to keep things to himself.

The knot was especially worrying because it wasn't the normal sort of nervousness Prompto felt at his jobs. Every day pictures and portraits didn't get him jittery anymore, but weddings...well, Gladio knew how weddings could be. No, this wasn't the slight flutter of butterflies that Gladio had gotten used to, this was _fear_ in his gut. It was steadily getting worse.

He tried to ignore it. He tried to focus on the weight leaning against him and the book in his hands. It was hard when you knew your mate was uncomfortable. It was hard when you were a dominant werewolf and all your wanted to do was protect him. Prompto wasn't a submissive, he sometimes had to remind himself. Prompto was an omega, rare and cherished, but he couldn't coddle him. Unlike a submissive, Prompto would bite back if he felt too smothered. It was normally a good thing. Gladio didn't want some tittering thing that couldn't stand on their own feet, yet, at times like these there was nothing Gladio wanted more than to call Prompto on the phone and just tell him to come home.

Prompto would chew him the fuck out if he did that. He'd deserve it.

He waited. He waited and waited until that feeling in his gut intensified and then all at once there was a pain in his face so fast and sharp that Gladio swore he could hear the slap that probably went along with it. He knew Ignis felt it too because beside him Ignis jolted awake, hand to his cheek. "It's okay, Iggy."

"It most certainly is not!" Was the snap back he got accompanied by the feel of seething fury in his chest. And...yeah. It wasn't, but at least he'd tried to be the calm one here. "Where exactly is he?! We're going to get him!"

In his pocket, his phone rang, and Ignis' eyes glowered with all the fire of his name as Gladio dug it out and put it to his ear.

_"H-Hey, Gladio?"_

"I'm here."

_"Can you come get me? Sorry. I know it's a bit of a walk."_

"Don't apologize. Iggy and I will be there as soon as possible."

_"No! Just. You. Please."_

Gladio took in a deep breath. He wasn't even looking at Ignis and he knew that wasn't going over well with him. "Okay. Are you okay?"

 _"Yeah,"_ that tone wasn't exactly reassuring. _"I'll be okay. Just. I don't think I'm okay to drive, you know?"_

"It's okay. I'll be there soon. Stay put. I love you."

_"Love you too. Bye."_

He looked back at Ignis while he put the phone back in his pocket. Sure enough his face was not exactly what Gladio would call the picture of pleased. It was actually quite the opposite. "He said no, Iggy."

"I know." The words were short and curt, and Gladio could practically see the battle going on behind Ignis' eyes. The battle was between his wolf needing to go and protect their omega and the want to respect said omega's wishes. Gladio knew respecting his wishes would be the winning side, but it took about a minute for Ignis to take a deep breath and relent. "I'll wait. Don't hesitate to call." The words were still stilted, but they were at least spoken softly. It was about as much of a win as Gladio could expect from a wolf like Ignis.

"I won't. You should try to get some sleep."

"Absolutely not until you're both home."

Gladio knew there was no arguing with that, so he left Ignis on the couch and made his way downtown with his phone's GPS with his guide. It took a while, too long, to get there, if only because he didn't have a car and was forced to walk until there were taxis. (He wasn't going to call a taxi, nope. Not gonna wait that long.) By the time there were taxis to hail walking would take less time, and so, an anxiety inducing forty-five minutes later he stood outside an incredibly ritzy hotel. It was fancy even by his standards as a rich kid. He whistled low and opened the front door.

Their house, their den, their _home_ was fancy. It was modern and up to date with every single modern convenience you could possibly think of. It always had clean, fresh paint on the walls and top thread count sheets on their beds. The showers were sleek with all those fancy water pressure and temperature buttons. The refrigerator could tell you what was inside of it with a tap of your finger. Their house had all those things, but looking inside this hotel made it feel like their home was a rudimentary log cabin out in the middle of the woods. Perhaps the only fancier place that Gladio had ever been was the Nox Flueret estate. No human needed this much fucking opulence. No wonder Prompto had been sitting in a jumble of nerves all night.

"Prom-" He hadn't even gotten his whole name out before his arm became the captive of a smaller man's hold. "-Pto. Hey." He slid his free fingers up into Prompto's hair, and he felt a subtle quiver at the touch.

"Can we go home now?"

"Yeah, but I need the keys. Do I ask the valet, or--"

The car keys gave a soft jingle as Prompto pulled them out of his pocket, and with that they left.

They were nearly ten minutes into their drive home before Prompto said anything. When he did speak, it was just, "Thanks for coming to get me."

"No thanks needed, just. Are you okay?" Poor Prompto, Gladio thought, he was going to get asked that question at least five more times before morning. It'd be a miracle if he didn't snap at one of them before then.

"Yeah," Prompto grumbled. "It'll be fine after I sleep."

"What happened?"

In his peripheral vision, Prompto gave a shrug that very much said that he didn't want to talk about it, so it was a surprise when he went on to say, "There was a guy there. I. I knew him from college."

"Not in the good way, I'm guessing?"

"I mean, we didn't hate each other or anything."

"But you weren't friends either."

"Yeah. Just. He was rich and I wasn't." Gladio snorted. Joke's on them now, since Prompto was actually probably richer than all of them at this point. Sure, Prompto didn't consider it his money, but it was. All he had to do was ask and Noctis would literally drown him in cash. Blood or marriage meant nothing. They were pack. Of course they shared their wealth. "I spent half the night hoping he wouldn't notice me."

"But he did?"

"I mean. Eventually. Yeah. I..." Prompto coughed awkwardly. "I don't think knowing who I was mattered so much as his date thinking I was cuter though."

Gladio snorted. "Yeah, that'll do it." His amusement faded away almost immediately. "So he hit you?"

"Yeah. They were both drunk by that point, so, it started with her being offended when I said no, and then he got upset because she was hitting on me _and_ I said no, and...well, it's good that there was security there."

Gladio sighed. As angry as it made him that Prompto had been struck, the punch or slap of a weak human wasn't going to do any lasting damage. The cause of the fight was the major thing. Well. That and, "You lost the job, didn't you?"

"No. I mean, I don't think I'm getting a stellar review, but they can't exactly redo the wedding and get someone else to take pictures. I'll...probably have to give them a discount though."

"It could be worse."

"Yeah," Prompto said. "It could."

The rest of the car ride was silent, but it didn't escape his notice that Prompto barely held it together when they got home and he instantly had an Ignis doting on him. Later, it was much the same story when Noctis returned, filled with fury and questions. It was really late, but when after Prompto had a shower, and both Ignis and Noctis had drifted off to bed, Prompto crawled into their own bed. That was when he fell apart.

It started with the smallest of sobs, but even before Gladio could get his arms around him, they started to cascade into the kinds of sobs that wracked the whole body top to bottom. "Come here." He said it, but the truth was he wasn't giving Prompto much of a choice. His mate was crying, and dammit if he wasn't going to hold him while he did.

Prompto didn't fight him, Gladio wasn't sure he could. He just cried against his shirt, and Gladio let him, hands running up and down his back while he cooed soft words of comfort that he wouldn't even remember the specifics of in the morning. He didn't ask Prompto to talk about it anymore, because it wasn't about talking anymore. It was about getting it out. Sometimes something happened and you needed to cry. Prompto needed to cry, and Gladio was happy to be the person he did it in front of.

He wasn't sure when they fell asleep, but it must have happened at some point because he woke up as there was that annoying little ray of sunshine poking through the smallest of gaps in their curtains. Prompto hadn't moved from his place in his arms, which melted Gladio's heart instantly, but Gladio did have to get up, he needed to get ready for work. He was sure his alarm would be ready to go off any moment now, and he needed to turn it off before he accidentally woke Prompto. Prompto needed all the sleep he could get.

The panic only started when he'd managed to disentangle himself from Prompto and saw the clock. He was supposed to be at the library in twenty minutes.

He rushed out of the room to jump in the shower, but he paused when he got to the living room and found Noctis on the couch, staring at him intently. "What did you do?"

"Why, Gladio, I am quite sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Don't bullshit me, little alpha."

Noctis snorted. "I turned off your alarm and called the library to tell them you won't be in today."

"...Why?"

"Prom needs you. I mean. I don't work today, so I suppose I could step in, but. You're his mate, Gladio. He needs _you_."

Gladio stood still for a moment, a little stunned and somewhat still asleep. "That. Was really thoughtful of you, Noct."

"I'm good like that sometimes. So. Uh. Go back to bed. Take your time, but I do have. One. Thing. Today. That I want."

"Yeah?"

Noctis sighed. "We've put it off too long." Gladio was just about to ask what they'd put off too long when Noct continued. "We want to think we can just...protect him, but he's been kidnapped twice, once right under our noses, and last night he got into a freaking drunken hissy fit. He's got strength. He...needs to learn how to use it."

Ah. Gladio thought with a sigh. Yeah. That was true. They had been putting that off too long. Prompto couldn't fight, not with any grace or real ability. Anyone could use brute strength to get out of something, but that wasn't Prompto. Prompto would be too afraid to hurt someone, really hurt them. Maybe that was what had happened last night. He had said that it had been lucky security had been there. He hadn't said he'd stopped it himself. "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Gladio said nodding. "I think you're right."

"I. You could start with like, punching bags somewhere? I dunno. Ease him into it? It'd be good for his stress too. Right?"

"Can't hurt."

"Great. Okay." Noctis clapped his hands on his knees before he pushed himself up to his feet. "So I guess I'm going back to bed for now. You should too."

He didn't let Noct slip away without a soft kiss to his lips, but he then followed the suggestion and slipped back into bed with Prompto. It was a couple more hours before Gladio woke up to the feeling of Prompto shifting around. "Morning?"

"Man, it's almost not even morning anymore."

"That's okay." He leaned down and pressed his lips to Prompto's forehead. Prompto leaned into it, and he enjoyed that simple feeling in being wanted in even the smallest of ways. "We had a late night."

"Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"Took the day off." Well, _he_ hadn't done it, Noct had done it for him, but that was semantics, and Prompto didn't have to know about that.

"You didn't have to."

"I know. What do you want for breakfast?"

"Hm." Gladio waited patiently while Prompto mulled over his answer. "Iggy's gone already."

"Way to make a guy feel special."

"Shut up!" There was a single harsh laugh and a shove against his diaphragm. "I'm just saying! Iggy's gone, so...we could go to IHOP?"

"I see how it is now. While the Iggy's away, the wolves will play?"

"Yeah," Prompto snorted, and Gladio's heart warmed to see that his mate wasn't completely wrecked by last night's events anymore. "Something like that."

"That sounds good. And. After that..."

"What?"

"You need to learn to defend yourself." There was no real tip toeing around it. Gladio just dove right in. "So, let's start with you properly learning to use those little fists of yours against a punching bag."

"Okay," Prompto said so softly Gladio could barely hear him.

"Yeah? Is that okay?"

"No. I mean. Yeah. It's okay. Just. Yeah." Prompto pushed his nose against his sternum, and for a second, Gladio thought he might start to cry again. "I don't ever want to be in that position again. So yeah. Let's go punch some punching bags."

"But IHOP first."

"Duh. Food first always." Prompto shimmied himself up in the bed so that he could kiss him, and Gladio smiled, knowing deep in their mate bond that Prompto was going to be okay. This would never happen again.


	9. High Price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A deal with fae is never easy. The price always hurts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO. You might notice that I now have an "out of" number at the top of the story. I have decided to end this story at twelve chapters. I'll also probably just mark _Summer Home_ as complete at last and mark the series off as complete. I haven't written all twelve chapters yet, but when I finish the last two I feel like I'll be satisfied with what I'll have written for this. Not too much, but not too little.
> 
> Moving on! This chapter's POV is **Prompto** , there is **no direct pairing** to this chapter, it's more...plot I guess. It takes place approximately **ten years** after the end of _FInding Home_.
> 
> Please Enjoy! <333333

"So. Uh. How much would something like that cost me?"

"It wouldn't be cheap."

Prompto sighed. He knew that. He knew that whatever price Luna asked of him was going to hurt in one way or another. Perhaps the price would even be too high. Perhaps he would refuse to pay it. He needed to know. "Just. Tell me?"

Luna reached out, and for a second, he thought she was going to put her hand over his in a gesture of comfort. Instead her finger tapped at his rings. Prompto felt all his breath freeze in his lungs and his heart drop to his stomach. "It would cost you these." His rings. The rings Ignis had made. The ones that weren't just for him, but were physical bonds that connected him to Ignis and Noctis. His wedding band. His promise ring. The rings he only ever took off when he changed. Yeah, this was a price that hurt just to think about.

"It would be cheaper," Luna said, her voice cutting through the fog that had entered his brain, "If you went home, told the others what you're doing, and you all came back together."

Quickly, Prompto shook his head. "No. Nope." He wasn't dragging them into this. Noctis had suffered enough already, and Ignis had been by his side, a pain for him all on his own. Gladio too had spent the last couple of weeks worried, though he acted like he wasn't attached too. No. They'd been pained enough, and this was a pain Prompto could bear. He so often felt like he could do so little for his pack. He could do this. He would do this. "I'll pay it."

"They're not going to be happy."

No. That was true. He could already hear the yelling, accompanied by that displeased look Ignis got when he was that kind of upset. No. They wouldn't be happy with him, but in the end, these rings were just rings, no matter how much they meant to him. They were talking about life and death. There wasn't really a comparison. "I'll still pay it."

"All right." Luna sat back, hands prettily set in her lap. "When do you want me to come do it?"

"Now is good." Everyone was at work, and the first to get off would be Noctis. Even that was still a couple hours away. This wouldn't take hours, right? "Before anyone gets home."

Prompto slid his rings off his finger. Already his finger felt bare, and there was a hole in his heart.

* * *

"What do you mean they're gone?!" Prompto shrugged, feeling defensive, despite knowing this had been coming. He'd tried to prepare for this. He'd tried to rehearse his answers and steel his soul, but what he couldn't prepare himself for was the pain and hurt that tempered the anger in Noctis' voice. "Where did you lose them?! Have you even looked?!"

"They're not in the house." He had to be careful not to lie. Noctis would smell a lie. He couldn't outright say they were lost, because they weren't. He knew where they were, he just didn't have them anymore. Noctis had to assume they were lost all on his own. So far it was working. It hurt. A lot. But it was working.

"Are you sure?!"

"Yeah."

"Where have you looked?! Maybe if we looked together--"

"Noctis." Between the two people available to maybe come to his aid, he had not expected it to be Ignis. "Calm down." His face was unreadable, though clearly not happy, but the hand he put on Noct's shoulder seemed to make their alpha deflate, like the air slowly being let out of a balloon.

"He lost--!"

"I know what he said. There is no use getting mad about it now." Prompto watched those fingers tighten their grip a little. "Things disappear and reappear all the time. I'm sure we'll see the rings again soon." The fingers released their captive shoulder and then patted it lightly. "Why you you check in on Babydoll?"

"Okay." Noctis pushed past Prompto without another word, and Prompto knew he was going to be facing Noctis' sulking wrath for a while yet. It would be worth it in the end. It would be. He just had to keep telling himself that.

"Prompto."

"Yeah?"

"Come empty the dishwasher while I start dinner." There was his first real sign that Ignis wasn't happy with him either. Normally, Ignis asked if he would. Would you? Please? Tonight it was a demand, a command, a price he was paying for "losing" his rings. Prompto would happily pay it.

Gladio's hand patted his shoulder gently as he went to follow Ignis. "It'll be okay." Gladio wasn't upset, but then, Gladio hadn't really lost anything. Neither of his rings had been symbols of their bond. "Just give it some time."

"Yeah. I know." He'd done the right thing. He knew he had. It didn't mean it didn't hurt to see how it hurt his family. "But thanks."

There was none of their normal friendly banter as Prompto put away dishes and Ignis got down pots and pans for that night's meal. Normally, the two of them coexisted okay in the kitchen which was something that Prompto was really proud of. Ignis didn't normally react well to others in his space while he cooked. You could stay at the table until he asked for it to be set. Today...Today, whether real or imagined, there was a chill between them that took up the entire room until Noctis' voice shattered their silence.

"Guys!" Looking like he'd just run (and won) a marathon, Noct ran back into the kitchen with Baby tucked into the crook of his elbow. "Look!"

"What am I supposed to be looking at Noctis?"

"She's purring!"

There was just a touch of heartbreak in the sigh Ignis gave. "We've been over this, Noct, purring doesn't always mean happy or good."

"No!" Noctis insisted. "This is a good purr! Listen!" Poor Baby was rather unceremoniously shoved in Ignis' direction, and, indulgently, Ignis took her in a much more gentle manner. He put his ear close to her chest, and a few moments later, Prompto knew he was looking at a mildly befuddled Iggy. "See?!"

"I-- Yes. It seems....strong."

"She's feeling better today!"

Prompto knew that his rings were worth nothing compared to the look of happy relief as Noctis took back Baby and looked at her as though she were the only thing in this universe that mattered. He was still in the doghouse, but damn was it worth it.

* * *

The car was gone when Prompto returned from his morning run. It was too early for any of his pack to be gone. The cafe didn't open for another three hours, and neither Gladio or Noct's shifts didn't start for another four. So why was the car gone? Briefly, Prompto considered the idea that someone had stolen it. It was a really nice car after all. The idea was quickly thrown out. That thing had an alarm system that was worth almost as much as the car itself. No one would have gotten away with stealing it, at least not without a very angry Gladio on their tail. Besides, he hadn't felt a disturbance in their bonds, and being awakened to the sound of a car alarm would have definitely given him something.

Inside the house, Baby meowed at him, Gladio was still asleep in their bed, and Noctis was still asleep in his. That meant it was Ignis who had taken the car. Of the options, that was the safest one. At least Ignis was normally up and dressed by now. Maybe they'd run out of milk and Ignis had decide to go to the 7-11. It was literally just about the only thing that made sense, and, trying to use that reasoning as a balm, Prompto went off to take his shower. He hoped Ignis was back by the time he got out.

He wasn't.

Prompto looked at the kitchen clock and told himself that he'd give Ignis another half an hour. Nothing disturbing had happened to the pack bonds yet, but this _was_ Ignis. It could be bad. It could. If he wasn't back in half an hour, he was going to wake Gladio. Gladio would know what to do. Gladio might even know where he went. Noctis would be a last resort. Noctis would overreact even worse than he was.

After he was dressed, Prompto forced himself to settle down at the kitchen table like it was a normal morning. He fidgeted and picked at his nails, and then tried to listen to music, all in vain before, another five minutes later, he heard the car pull into the driveway. Prompto sagged against the table in relief. Thank the gods Ignis was all right.

He waited for the door to open, and he waited for Ignis to enter the kitchen area before he spoke. "Morning, Iggy!"

"Good morning, Prompto."

"Where did you go so--" There was a small clinking sound as Ignis half sat half slammed something on the table in front of him. When he pulled his hand away, Prompto practically felt his heart stop in his chest to see his rings there. "--Early?" He was in so much fucking trouble.

"As you might imagine, I am displeased."

"I know." Prompto mumbled, sinking deep into his seat. His mind raced over all the different reasons he knew Ignis was angry right now. "You spent so much time on those rings, and I shouldn't have traded them away, and--"

"Not about that," Ignis half snapped at him. It wasn't a good sign. Snapping even in a small way meant Ignis was really close to the edge that no one wanted a dominant werewolf to fall off of. Prompto flinched.

"...No?"

"No. The rings are just _things_. I can make you more. I would have made you another set, eventually, had you truly lost them. I am upset that you went and made a trade on your own. It wouldn't be so bad if it were something selfish, but you went about something that affected us all. You went and made a faery trade about our family pet! We could have shared the price! We _should_ have shared it!"

"You...you were already suffering. You...were waiting for her to die." He remembered the trip to the vet. He remembered how Noctis had actually cried when he'd been told his cat, the best cat in the whole wide world, had cancer. He remembered how Ignis' face had gotten tight. He remembered how Gladio had stood to the side, not knowing what to do to help his pack. Pain. Too much pain. He hadn't been able to bear it.

"She's old! Of course we were waiting for her to die. It's...the natural course of things. Creatures die. Even we will. Eventually." Ignis sat down at the table, or rather he slunk into his chair with a small thud, his hands sliding up into his hair. "Look. It was selfless, and it was noble. It was also stupid of you. And then, on top of it, you tried to conceal it! Telling Noctis the rings were "gone," making him think that you'd carelessly lost them. Thinking it was worth it because our cat got better. It. Was. Not."

Prompto disagreed. It had been one hundred percent worth it.

Eventually, Ignis lifted his head. "What...?" He paused. "What exactly did you trade for? Her good health? Healing? She's old, Prompto, it would only be temporary."

"I." He took a deep breath. "I asked her to tie her to me? Like. She dies when I die? And yeah. I asked for the cancer to be yeeted first."

Ignis let his head fall back against the table with a dull thud, and Prompto couldn't help but think that it looked like it hurt. Prompto was also pretty sure that whatever it was that he was muttering under his breath wasn't nice. "No more faery deals for you. You're going to get yourself killed. In fact. We're going to lock you in the basement, and feed you through the little mail slot so you can't do things like this anymore."

"I...think that might be a bit harsh, Iggy."

"I do not agree."

"Also. We don't have a basement."

"I suppose I'd better start digging then." With a great sigh, Ignis pushed himself up and away from the table. For a second, Prompto actually thought he was going to go start digging a basement, but instead he just went off toward the stove to start breakfast. "I'm serious. No more faery deals. Even with Luna. You will also be informing Noctis of what you did by yourself, because if you think he's not going to eventually notice that our cat is now semi-immortal, you're gravely mistaken."

Ugh. Yeah. That...was gonna suck. But! At least he had his rings back. He plucked them from where Ignis had left them and slid them back on his finger. Ah. He felt complete again. "So. What did you have to give her to get them back? I mean, we're talking pot and kettle here, right? You had to make a deal."

"I did, but I at least know what I asked for." Prompto watched him pull a carton of eggs from the fridge before he spoke again. "I am to make an enchanted, metal, prosthetic left arm within a span of six months."

"...Okay? Why?"

Ignis made a small sound that was too light hearted and happy for what he actually said next. "Apparently Ravus needs a new left arm."

Prompto knew it was revenge pure and simple that Ignis would not tell him anything more than that.


	10. Cliche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gladio discovers that sometimes "turnabout is fair play" can be the best feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday! 
> 
> Today's chapter is from **Gladio's POV**. The main pairing is **Promptio**. It takes place about **eight years** after the end of _Finding Home_.
> 
> I actually particularly enjoyed writing this one, so I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did! <3333

In his deepest heart of hearts, Gladio liked cliche, cheesy, chick flick on a Saturday night, romance. His father said it was something he'd inherited from his mother. When Gladio had come to love reading later in his teenage years, his father had gifted him with his mother's entire collection of Harlequin novels, which...had not been an insignificant number. His father's only caveat was that if he didn't like them he should gift them to Iris next. Luckily for Gladio, Iris much preferred reading things like Nancy Drew than anything with kissing, and he got to keep his mother's treasured collection all to himself. He more than liked the books, they were connection with his now dead mother. A string connecting them through her absence. It was, admittedly, a bit of an odd connection, but he felt its love all the same.

Gladio hadn't actually thought that life worked like a romance novel, but that didn't mean he hadn't taken ideas from it. The sad fact though, was that Ignis was a pragmatic man at best. He didn't reject flowers, but it was rather clear he looked at them as something he had to get rid of in a hurry once they were wilted, and it was a pain for him to either throw away or compost. The one time he'd made the mistake of making a rose petal trail, Ignis had laughed at him. Sure, it had gotten him laid, but the laugh had said it all. Ignis' idea of a romantic dinner was one he made himself, and one that preferably didn't have candles to drip wax everywhere.

Gladio should have known better. The Ignis he'd fallen in love with had always been more practical than whimsical, and that applied to wooing him too. It wasn't something that changed later on either, after over a decade of being separated, and then getting back together in that whirlwind of a summer that had changed his entire life again. For romance, Ignis was the same as ever. He liked being kissed at the door, he liked holding hands, but a good book was a better gift than a box of chocolates, and if you wanted sex, asking was better than trying to lure him with clues.

Noctis was even worse. Noctis loved passionately, but Noctis didn't want any of your romantic bullshit. For Noctis even hearing or saying "I love you" was often difficult. His way of romance of more spending time together doing things you both enjoyed than anything else. Flowers were embarrassing, and he could buy his own chocolate, thanks. The best you could get out of Noctis was cuddling. A movie on a screen and curled up on the couch. It was a joy, certainly, and it quelled a small hole in Gladio's where where Noctis was concerned, but it wasn't the romance he craved either.

That's where Prompto came in. As his mate, of course Prompto mirrored his own desires the best of his three lovers. He'd held off on it early in their relationship, but the more time that passed, the more bold he got, and the more he learned. He learned that while classic roses weren't the best pick, a bouquet of flowers would make Prompto blush and sputter with happiness. A box of chocolates would make him smile. Candlelit dinners made Prompto's heart stutter. He couldn't do too much, or Prompto could complain that he had a "weak heart" and this was all too much. It didn't matter, Gladio would take what he could get. Someday, he even hoped to drag his mate to somewhere with wide sandy beaches, so they could stroll along it in the moonlight. Those were the cliche, never ending honeymoon phase sorts of things that he could only do for Prompto, and he was happy with that. He _was_.

"Are you...Gladiolus Amicitia?"

Stupidly, as though there were anyone else in the world, let alone in the library, that shared his name, Gladio looked around before his eyes settled back on the man with a red shirt and a red cap. "Yes?" he said. Like it was a question. Like his fucking name was a question.

"Sign here. Just gotta confirm that you got it."

"...Okay?" He sighed his name on the little dotted line presented to him on a clipboard. For all he actually knew, he'd just signed his whole life away to someone other than Noctis. What had he signed for? What had come for him here? At the library?

"Great! Here you are." It was a rose. Just one rose. It was red, and it was probably the most perfectly formed rose he'd ever seen. When he placed to his nose, it even smelled in that way that most roses these days didn't.

"No note?"

The delivery boy shook his head. "If you ask me, Mr. Amicitia, it looks like you have a secret admirer."

So it did. Sweet, but it ultimately didn't matter. He had the people he wanted in life, all of them at jobs of their own right now. He set the flower aside, and tried to set it aside in his mind too. It worked, until he pulled open a filing drawer and found a box of chocolates with his name on them. Now it was odd. Gladio squinted at the writing, as though it would make it any clearer. It was neat writing, but clearly not anyone's he knew. Prompto's writing was literally a messy scrawl on par with a doctor's. Ignis was elegant and of a time that was clearly not now, and Noct was somewhere in between. This was something else entirely, in fact, it was almost calligraphy.

The chocolate went untouched with the rose.

At the end of his shift he took them with him out to the car where Ignis waited. There was something both upsetting and worrying about the way Ignis snorted at the sight of the two simple items he sat in his lap. "Do I need to be jealous?"

"No! You do not!"

"It's not even Valentine's day yet and all the schoolgirls are giving you gifts."

"That's not--!" He couldn't even say that wasn't what it was, because he honestly didn't know. "It doesn't mean anything. I don't even know who they're from."

"It's all right." Ignis shifted so that he could lean across the center console and kissed his cheek. Gladio wasn't sure if that made him feel better or if it made his blood simmer a little bit more. "It's just adorable." Ignis didn't say anything else about the rose or the chocolates all the way home, which was good, because Gladio wasn't sure his heart could take any more of Ignis' teasing.

Once they got home, Ignis didn't pull into the driveway, and Gladio gave him a look. "I'm dropping you off," came the simple reply.

"Why?"

"Noct wants me to come pick him up. He had a busy day today." That was weird too, though not unheard of. Still, it was just weird and off. The whole day was! Every since he'd gotten the rose that morning the whole day had sort of felt like _The Twilight Zone_ , like at any moment the sky was going to open up and rain bloody eyeballs. "Why don't you head inside?"

"Yeah, okay." He took his rose and his box of chocolates and got out of the car. Ignis was gone before he realized what was on the porch.

He gasped. This was no single rose. This was a gigantic vase of flowers. He ran up to the front door only to be more baffled. There were rose of every color he could practically imagine, and there were irises too, roses, irises, lilies, carnations, and...gladiolus. They were the tallest, and artfully stuck out from the rest of the shorter flowers. It was. It was perhaps the most beautiful bouquet he'd ever seen.

There was a note, but it wasn't very helpful. All it said was "For you" in that same calligraphy-like script as the box of chocolates.

It was big enough that getting it into his arms without actually disturbing the arrangement at all was difficult, but he managed to both pick it up with the things already in his hands, and open the door.

Inside the door began a trail of rose petals. Suddenly, the mystery and worry about a secret admirer fell off of his shoulders, and Gladio was grinning as he followed the trail all the way out to the dining room, where the table was set up with Ignis' finest china, and candles sat, just waiting to be lit.

Oh, how his heart swelled with love and affection.

"Hey! How was your day?! Oh!" Prompto's small, fluttering hands reached up to take the flowers from him. "Lemme take that!" The vase was easily lifted from his arms and set on the island. If he hadn't already figured it out, Gladio would be suspicious about how good it looked just sitting there. "So? Day?"

"Confusing."

"Yeah?" Prompto's back was to him, but Gladio could hear the grin in his words. "Confusing how?"

"I got a delivery guy at my desk this morning. He gave me a rose, no note, no nothing. Just a rose."

"Ooh."

"And then, a little later, I found a box of chocolates in a filing cabinet drawer, with only my name on them."

"The plot thickens."

Gladio rolled his eyes, and took a step forward. "And then, I get home, and there's this giant bouquet waiting for me."

"The scandal!"

He took another step. "And inside the door is a literal trail of rose petals that leads me to what looks like the beginnings of a romantic dinner for two."

"What could it all possibly mean?!"

One more step was all it took for Prompto to be within grasp, and Gladio took his chance, sweeping him up by his waist and spinning him around, while Prompto squealed with laughter. "It means," he said, once he stopped spinning and had Prompto tucked neatly against his chest. "That I have the best damn mate in the whole world."

"Well," Prompto began breathlessly, "I gotta admit, I had a little help."

"Yeah?"

"Uh huh. Ignis made most of dinner, and Noctis did all the flower and chocolate stuff. Mostly, I just came up with the idea."

"Mastermind is the most important role." Prompto started to squirm in his arms a little, and, very reluctantly, Gladio let him go. His shoes hit the tile with a small clack. "What I don't understand is...why?"

"Why what?"

"Why today? Why...the mysterious grandness?" As Ignis had said, it wasn't Valentine's Day. It wasn't their anniversary. It wasn't even the weekend. It was a normal, every day weekday. Nothing special at all. "It's all so very...cliche."

"And you love it." The words were soft, but confident. It was true. He did. It was cliche, and gaudy, and he'd spent half the day worried he was going to have three werewolves on the hunt for a poor innocent teenage girl, but here he was, he knew the truth, and he loved it. It was truly something straight out of one of his mother's old romance novels. "I've noticed that...you do this sort of thing for me, for us, whenever you can. Flowers, chocolates, late night cuddles on the couch by the fireplace, or it would be, if we had a fireplace, romantic dinners out. The works." Prompto shrugged. "I just...thought...maybe it was time for you to get that too."

"All at once?"

"Go big or go home?"

Gladio laughed. In this case it was more like 'Go big _and_ go home,' but he got the point. "I love it. I love everything about it."

"Good." Prompto pushed himself up on his tiptoes and Gladio leaned down just the tiniest bit for a chaste, yet completely wonderful kiss. "Go get changed. Dinner will be ready when you're done."

"Do I get you for dessert?"

The blush on Prompto's cheeks was delightful, as was the half-hearted hit to his arm. "I have plans, and they don't include skipping the cake Iggy made!"

"Ooh, cake." Gladio chuckled as he leaned down to steal another kiss, the second of what he hoped would be many kisses that evening. "So more like midnight snack then?"

"...Maybe not that late. Or maybe it will, if you keep loitering here instead of getting dressed for dinner."

Another chuckle escaped his lips. "Sorry. Just. Thank you. For doing this." He would have never imagined any of his lovers doing this, let alone working together for something so cheesy and cliche. Just for him. "I love you." Right in that moment, Gladio wasn't sure it was possible to love his mate more. He wasn't sure he'd ever been so happy.

Right out of a romance novel indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you wondering, Noctis got a lady from the shelter he works at to write the notes for him.


	11. Alone Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not the first time Noctis and Gladio have gone off for a weekend like this, but it's their first time as part of a romantic relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday!
> 
> This week's chapter is from **Noctis' POV**. The main pairing is **Gladnoct** , and it takes place the **summer after** the end of _Finding Home_.
> 
> The last chapter may not be out in two weeks. It is going to be particularly long, and I'm not even half done with it yet. Please bear with me. <3
> 
> Enjoy! <33333333333

"Is it a date?"

"Is what a date, Noct?"

"The trip. With Gladio. Is that a date?"

Ignis' knife was gently sat down on the counter, and his mate pulled out the chair across from him. "I don't know, Noctis," he said as he sat down in it. "It's not my fishing trip."

"That's the problem," Noctis groaned. "I don't know either!"

"All right. Let's work through it." Noctis nodded, relieved for the offer of help, and Ignis continued. "Why wouldn't it be a date?"

"Uh." Noctis had to think, he really did. Thinking like this just wasn't his strong suit. Lists and reasonings were Ignis' area. "Because? We've done this before? A lot?" That was true enough. It had been a long time, like, way too long, but once upon a time he and Gladio had often slipped away for weekends of camping and fishing. As friends. It had been their thing. Ignis would stay home and they'd go out and come back with fish and sore backs. Or. Noctis had always had a sore back. Gladio said that sleeping on the hard ground invigorated him. Somehow. Noctis had never understood that.

"And why would it be a date?"

"Because our relationship is romantic now?" That was all he had on that front. It really was. Plain and simple, that was it.

"You know what this sounds like to me?"

"No. What?"

"It sounds like you need to talk to him." Ignis got back up from his chair and went back toward the kitchen.

Noctis scoffed. "Really? That's your advice."

"It is."

It was truly terrible advice, if only because Noctis was even worse at talking than he was at thinking. Of course, he ended up never saying anything to Gladio at all.

Entirely too early on Saturday morning, all their stuff was piled into the back of the car and goodbyes were said to a bleary eyed Prompto who would probably go back to bed for three more hours, and an all too awake Ignis who would not. Gladio drove first, and he played his music at a soft, tolerable level that allowed Noctis to fall asleep again himself. His dreams were fleeting and fitful, what with the bumps in the road and the rising sun off in the east. When Noctis really woke up again he felt groggy and hungry.

At his grumbling, Gladio pulled off and they ate breakfast in a greasy little place that Ignis would have hated even more than IHOP. Hell, even Noctis made a mental note that they were never coming here again, no matter how good the coffee smelled. There were really questionable stains on the ceiling that. Maybe. Even. Smelled. Like dried blood. Nope. Never again. French toast, coffee, out.

Noctis took over driving after that, and Gladio took a nap of his own. It got quieter and quieter as they got away from the cities and the roads went down from five lanes to three, to two, to one each way. His hands relaxed on the steering wheel. Ignis liked to drive in the crazy ass traffic of multiple lanes on either side of you. He found it a good challenge. Noctis on the other hand wanted to live. He was happy when he didn't have to worry about anything other than what was directly behind him and was oncoming on the other side of the road. It was simpler like this, and while Noctis loved his life with his pack in the city, and he loved his job, and he loved being near Luna, there was just...something alluring about simpler.

He would never actually be a camping nut like Gladio, but Noctis could at least understand the allure, unlike Ignis who liked his stoves high end and remembered a time before electricity thank you very much and Prompto who had never lived anywhere but the city before living at Dad's estate. As though his Dad's estate could be considered less than modern perfection. Noctis sighed just thinking about it. No, city living was nice, and he couldn't do without his phone or his cheeseburgers for more than a few days, but there was definitely something nice about simple and removed. Especially when he could appreciate it with Gladio.

Gladio woke up just before the road became one way gravel. He yawned, stretching his ham hock arms high over his head. "How far away are we?"

"Not far," Noctis said, glancing down at the GPS he didn't really need at this point. "Maybe fifteen minutes."

"Perfect."

The rest of the ride was Gladio stretching out in the seat next to him and the ping pang pong of pebbles hitting the undercarriage of the car. By the time he killed the engine, Noctis was pretty anxious to not hear that sound again for a while. Their car was tough, probably tougher than it looked, actually, but the sound of things continuously hitting it was always a bit nerve wracking.

"What's first?"

"I dunno. Setting up camp, I guess." It felt good to stretch his legs after the drive, but it also made him want to lay back right there and take a nap. Long car rides were the worst. How did you get so freaking tired just sitting and watching the road? He popped the trunk before Gladio could even ask, and procrastinated about getting up and out of the car long enough that Gladio was already rooting around in their stuff before he actually pushed himself to his feet. He'd expected Gladio to have pulled out the tent. That was, after all, their shelter, and though the sky was clear now, who knew if it would be come evening? When he got back there though, the tent was still firmly in its corner of the trunk, and instead Gladio had taken out his fishing rod and tackle box.

"Funny. That doesn't look like things to set up camp with."

Gladio smiled. It was a nice smile, not the smirk or the grin of triumph he got when he was in a fight, but a nice one. The soft one normally aimed at Ignis or Prompto. "I can set up camp. I was thinking maybe you'd like to get a head start on fishing."

"That's hardly a fair trade. I get to fish and you get to hammer nails into the ground? Nuh uh." He crossed his arms over his chest and mentally dug himself in for a fight. Sure, he'd rather snatch up the tackle box and his rod and go fish. Sure he would, but that wasn't fair. It wasn't! He didn't want to just leave Gladio to do all the work. How was that right? He was the alpha! He was supposed to take care of them!

That soft smile grew a little, and Gladio turned toward him. "Little Alpha." Noctis tensed up. Normally, if and when Gladio called him that, it was when he was annoyed and they were alone. It was a name he used to express his displeasure, by calling him small, but still showing respect by adding on alpha, so Noctis didn't literally rip him a new one. It usually made him want to rip him a new one anyway. This wasn't like that. This was said as softly and affectionately as that smile on his face. A pet name. Said with love. "You've been driving for hours, you got us here. Let me do this for you."

It was a request that created conflict in him. He was alpha. He was supposed to take care of his pack, and he'd already spent so long being taken care of by everyone around him, but Gladio had asked him to do this. He was supposed to listen to reasonable requests, and Gladio had expertly phrased it in an 'You already did such a good job taking care of me' way. Ugh.

"Don't strain yourself."

"I won't. I promise, Noct."

"...Okay. I'm trusting you."

"I appreciate it." Gladio turned a little and leaned down. Their lips touched in a kiss, and Noctis' heart sung, as it always did when one of them kissed him. He loved being kissed. He could kiss all day and not grow tired of it, but this one was brief. He almost asked, as Gladio drew away. Was this a date? Almost. The words died on his lips, and instead he grabbed his rod and tackle box and ran. He was disappointed that he couldn't even bring himself to ask such a simple question. How stupid.

He forgot almost all his woes once he got to the dock. There was just something about fishing. He knew other people couldn't understand it. It was an old man's hobby that bored onlookers and relied on waiting for a few moments of excitement. Sometimes those moments of excitement never came. Sometimes you fished all day and nothing ever nibbled on your lure. For Noctis, even that was part of the allure.

There hadn't been a lot he could do sometimes, when the wounds in his back were fresh. He'd always been able to fish. Even sitting in a wheelchair he could fish. It felt useful, and it was so damn calming. He genuinely loved it, and he got to do it so rarely. Camping was the same for Gladio. He loved that sleeping on the ground, campfire smores thing, and so, their interests fit together really well. Before Gladio, Ignis had deigned to take him fishing. It wasn't for him. He'd do it, he'd sit around and drink coffee and read, but it wasn't anything he had any interest in. He'd done the same for Gladio, when they'd initially dated. Occasionally he'd go camping with him, because Gladio loved it, and who was he to say no to that? But when the two of them came together for a weekend like this it felt different because they were both really, actually getting something out of it. It wasn't a burden or an obligation. This was fun. For both of them.

This was their spot. Way out in the middle of nowhere was where they always came. To this little lake where there was little to nothing for at least two miles in any direction. That might have scared some people, but not them. After all, if push came to shove, they were wolves, and they could survive quite well on their own until they made it back to some semblance of civilization. In the meantime, Noctis would fish and Gladio would set up camp, and the sky was still clear.

With his favorite lure on the end of his line, Noctis settled into his fishing. Before long he had started to feel like he was one with his rod, and his mind began to clear of everything except for fishing. When he was fishing, he didn't even need music. After all, music might scare the fish.

Today, the fish were biting. Within a relatively short period of time he had three fish caught and was waiting for a fourth nibble when he heard Gladio step onto the dock. He whistled low. "Fish are really biting, huh?"

"Yeah, it's exciting over here today."

"That means a good dinner tonight."

Noctis smiled. "Yeah." He didn't ask if Gladio were done setting up camp, but he must have been, because he lingered about, reading or watching. They didn't talk much, but the feeling of simple companionship and not quite being alone was good, calming, nice. By the end of the day, he had caught eight fish. That was good enough for a dinner between them.

"No Liege of the Lake today?"

"Nah." Noctis said with a shake of his head as he packed his stuff back up. "Someday though."

"Maybe tomorrow."

Noctis grinned. "Maybe."

Between the two of them, Gladio was by far the better cook. So he ended up cooking the fish on little sticks over the fire. It wasn't Ignis' cooking, but it was good, maybe because it was so simple, and of course, smores afterwards left him with an almost overwhelming sweetness on his tongue that was deeply satisfying. There truly was just something about food cooked over an open fire that satisfied in a way that the most gourmet dish didn't. Not that it was more or less satisfying, but that it was different and special.

Special. That was the right word. They came out to the middle of nowhere to hunt every month, was this was different, it had a special haze to everything that made it more. Gladio started telling ghost stories while he still had bits of graham cracker and marshmallow fluff between his teeth, and he laughed instead of cried at those stories because, well, truth was stranger than fiction. He knew that those were things he'd remember vividly. The important bits and the feelings that went with them.

"You ready for bed?"

"Yeah, guess so."

"Not too tired?"

"Nah." It was its own kind of satisfying to be able to say that. Barely a year ago the answer would have been yes. Barely a year ago he would already be conked out. Now, even with Ignis' own drain pulling at him, it was a manageable kind of fatigue. The kind that told him he'd sleep well and be happier for it.

With Gladio behind him Noctis slipped through the tent flap, fully prepared to crawl into his sleeping bag the moment he had his shoes off. He stopped short when he realized that there was no sleeping bag for him. Instead there was just one big sleeping bag. For a moment he stared, mouth agape, and then he whirled around to face Gladio. "Did you...?"

"Yeah. I zipped 'em together. I though we'd be more comfortable sleeping together. Do you mind?"

"No! I. Just." Noctis paused, pressing his hands into his face hard enough that he could see the bursts of color behind his eyelids. Words, idiot. He had to use words. "It's great. Thanks." They weren't a lot of words, but they were enough.

Gladio got into the giant sleeping bag second, and Noctis, already half asleep, happily turned to face him. Gladio's arms were wrapping around him even before he'd completed the motion, and it was nice. It was nice to be the one clung to first. It was also nice to fall asleep surrounded by warmth, scent, and a feeling of being wanted. Even while camping.

Though there was nothing to help the feeling of stiffness in his back, he woke up in the morning feeling otherwise well rested, a rarity all on its own. Gladio managed to make biscuits over the fire, and they ate them with butter and honey that Noctis hadn't been aware he'd brought with them. Then there was the hike.

For Noctis, hiking was always the worst part of their trips. It was long, boring, and there wasn't even the idea of fish at the end of it. You walked for a distance in one direction, and then you just turned around and came back the other way. It got Gladio's blood going though. He liked all of it, the bird watching, the flower identifying, the berry picking (if they were edible, Noctis definitely left that part to Gladio). He was such a nerd about it, but then, Noctis couldn't really complain. He was going to be a nerd about fishing when they got back to the docks. Besides. It was good to see that bright, wide smile turn on everything around him. This really was Gladio's element.

By the time they got back to the docks, Gladio had a bag filled with berries. Apparently it was the season for things like wild strawberries, mulberries, raspberries and the like. That was what they ate as Noctis fished. They came straight from the bag to their lips, unwashed, uncooked, un...anything. It evoked the feel of summer while they were there. Gladio reading again, and Noctis refilling their stock of fish again. It was surprising, that the fish were so eager, but it only added to the ambiance and feel of nostalgia for something...he really shouldn't feel nostalgic for.

Hours seemed to pass by like a waft of summer breeze. Slow, but pleasant.

"What you got there, Noct? You need help?"

The answer should be no. Not just on a pride level, but in general, Noctis really shouldn't be having trouble pulling up a fish. He'd never known mere human strength, but he knew he far surpassed it. He and his absolutely top of the line rod shouldn't be struggling. He is. Struggling. A lot. "Help would be...nice?"

Gladio is beside him instantly. It's comforting, to have his weight behind him, to feel his hands glide over his own. "Should I pull?"

"Steady," Noctis corrected with a shake of his head. "I'm still gonna try to reel it in."

It's slow going, but with Gladio there to help him hold on, it's manageable. The fish, or whatever it is, isn't going down without a fight, that's for sure. It kept pulling them this way and that, back and forth. It's a surprise that the line itself didn't snap, with how taut it seemed to get with every movement on the unseen end. Slack becomes Noctis' best friend, until, finally, it's not enough.

The line yanked, almost toppling them both over the edge of the dock, almost into the water below. It makes Noctis' heart pound in his chest. Not deep enough here, he thinks, it's not deep enough here to kill them, but when going in headfirst, even a kiddie pool would be terrifying. They don't fall in though, instead the line finally snapped, and they fall backward.

That's when they see it.

It jumps over them. It was so big that for a moment it blocked the sun above them. Its scales were brightly colored, not like a lake fish at all. It had whiskers, and Noctis could see his snapped line still hanging from its mouth. It's there, and then it was gone, and for a moment or twelve there was silence before Gladio dared to ask.

"Do you think that was a fish fae?"

"I hope not," Noctis replied, not surprised to hear a slight tremble in his voice. "Because if it was, we just royally pissed it off."

There was another beat of silence between and then Gladio's laugh reached his ears. Soon, Noctis was laughing with him. It was too absurd not to laugh at. The liege of the lake was a story at least fifty years old. Neither Gladio nor Noctis had ever expected to catch it, despite all the teasing he and Gladio had done over the years. It had just been a myth, a story to keep people fishing in a remote spot away from anything. Now they knew it was real. It was ridiculous, and magical, and daunting all at the same time. The only thing they really could do was laugh, until all the laughter had faded from their lungs and a small bit of silence settled between them again.

"Noct?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

Noctis let his head fall back so that it hit against Gladio's shoulder with a small thud. From this angle, Noctis could see Gladio's face, so he knew that Gladio could see his grin in return. "I love you too."

The next morning it was raining, and they packed up their things in a silence that was only sullen because of the weather. Yes, Noctis back was aching something fierce, and yes, it was too early for this, as far as he was concerned. Yes, those things were true, but it had been a good weekend out, and now it was time to return home to the rest of their pack. Besides, if you had to do anything in the gloomy rain, driving was it.

It was late afternoon when they finally pulled into their driveway. At the door they were greeted first by Baby, and then Prompto, who, after a quick hug and kiss went back out with Gladio to grab things from the car. It was Ignis who lingered behind. "Hey."

"Hey yourself," Ignis returned with a smile. "So?"

"So...?"

"Was it? A date?"

Oh. Right. In the end, Noctis never had gotten around to asking, yet, he was very confident when he said. "Yeah, it was."

"You're positive?"

Noctis thought back. "Yeah." It wasn't just the way the evening before had ended, with lips pressed against his own and hands wandering almost everywhere that Noctis could imagine, that made him sure, but it was everything else together too. Hiking, and fishing that almost ended up with them in the lake. Berries eaten under the sun, and smores before ghost stories. The truth was that from beginning to end it had been a date, even if it had never been said. "It was a really good date."

"Excellent." Ignis fingers came up to brush a few wet strands from his forehead. "Why don't I finish your date up with some hot cocoa? You both look damp and miserable."

Noctis laughed. Yeah. Yeah. He supposed they probably did. "That'd be great. Thanks, Specs."


	12. Moving On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you have to rediscover the same thing over and over again before the message really starts to sink in. Sometimes that's painful, but it's easier, if we're not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday to you all!
> 
> Yes, yes, this is the last chapter, on time even! Though you're all lucky it's on time. I nearly didn't make it. Or should I say I'm lucky because the anxiety if I hadn't gotten it done... Hm.
> 
> Moving on! This chapter is from **Prompto's** POV. The pairing is **OT4 Overall** , and it takes place about **fifteen years** after the end of the main story.
> 
> Please enjoy this final chapter, and thank you for making it this far with this one. <33333333

Today, Prompto thought as he watched Ignis begin his breakfast prep. Today was absolutely the day that he would finally succeed at the challenge that he'd been attempting for a number of years now. He'd been planning it since his last failure some months before, and with failure as his teacher he thought he finally had it all figured out.

The first key to success was that no one else was home right now and there was almost no chance that they'd return. Gladio was off with his father visiting Iris in Lestallum for a couple days, and Noctis was off in the opposite direction, visiting his own father. Normally, both Ignis and Prompto would have gone off with their respective mates, but Prompto had gotten a last minute appointment to shoot a wedding, and dominant wolf anxiety dictated that one of them had to stay at the den with their omega. Ignis volunteered, and in terms of his challenge attempt, that was great.

He should have known from the start that there was no way Ignis was going to fuck him on the kitchen counter if there was any chance at all that someone would walk in on them. That was definitely step one. Part two? Part two was getting Ignis riled up quickly enough that he forgot about how unsanitary fucking in the kitchen was. Part three was offering to clean after, if part two failed. Part four was really just begging. He was not above begging. Begging was a very pleasing sound to dominant wolf ears. It had gotten him things he'd wanted before.

Now... now Prompto had to wait for just the right moment. It couldn't be a moment where Ignis might drop and break something. It also couldn't be a moment where he was actually cooking. Distraction wouldn't work then. It had to be somewhere between. It was a small window of opportunity, and he would have to make his move perfectly.

The moment came between setting the eggs down on the counter and Ignis reaching up to take a pot or pan down from its hook. "Hey, Iggy?" The hand stopped, and did not complete its mission of getting the pan or pot. Great. That was great. "Can I make a request for breakfast?"

"Of course." His head turned and those green eyes met his own. It was one of those rare moments where he felt like he could be swallowed up by them. "What did you want?"

 _You,_ but Prompto didn't ruin the moment by actually saying that. Instead he all but dragged Ignis down to him in a kiss, and it was a good sign that Ignis didn't instantly pull away but instead actually leaned into it. His hands cupped Prompto's face, tilting his head up just that little bit more so he had better leverage. Yes. Good. Excellent.

They ended up with Prompto back against the island, bodies nearly flush against each other, and his hands finding Ignis' nipples beneath the fabric of his shirt and pinching them hard. Ignis hissed into his mouth, and Prompto took the noise happily. Any sound from Ignis was a good sound. Or that was what he thought until Ignis' hand pressed flat against his chest and pushed them apart just enough that Prompto whined. "Not in the kitchen, Prompto."

He groaned, letting his head fall back. "Iggy! Come on!"

Lips pressed gently against his throat. Too gently, too chastely for anything that he wanted right now. "It's wholly unsanitary."

"I'll help you clean up!"

"Of course you would. That's not even in question."

"Please?" He drew the word out in a whine, and Ignis had the gall to chuckle at him.

"You're just going to have to try and complete your mission another day, Prompto." He knew. He knew it was his personal challenge. Of course he knew. It was Ignis. He knew almost everything. "Now truly; what do you want for breakfast?"

"Just for that, I want crepes."

"Deal." Ignis kissed the tip of his nose in a motion that spoke more Gladio than Ignis. Gladio was rubbing off on him. He drew away from him completely then, and it left Prompto feeling too cold.

"Fuck," he grumbled to himself.

"We can still do that after breakfast, if you like. Just not in the kitchen."

"You have work to get to," he grumbled, not to himself this time.

"Prompto. Darling. It's Monday."

"Is it?" You would think he'd know. If it was Monday, that meant that last minute wedding was later that evening. It also meant- "You have the day off."

"Yes, I do."

A quiet thrill filled his gut, and despite his failure, Prompto found himself grinning. "You deciding to close the cafe on Mondays was your best idea ever."

"It certainly gives me more time with my loved ones, and I can't count that as a bad thing."

Prompto stayed by the island, watching Ignis work for a minute or two before he ventured. "In the living room?"

Ignis paused, just long enough to turn his head and give Prompto a once over that made him feel very wanted. "I'll compromise to that."

Score! "I'll still help you clean up."

"Of course you will."

Still grinning, Prompto slipped back off to the table and pulled out his laptop to work on some pictures while Ignis worked on breakfast. It was a good sort of silence that filled the space between them, at least it was until the landline rang.

The thing about the landline was that they didn't use it. It was Ignis who insisted they have it, just in case they couldn't use their own personal phones for some reason or another. None of the rest of them even thought they ought to have it, but it quelled some sort of anxiety inside of Ignis to have it and that made it important. Noctis had gone out of his way to buy one of those neat yet somehow horrifying old 80's phones, (the ones that were made with clear plastic and had neon colored wiring inside) and it hung on the wall. It never rang. Even the scammers and telemarketers had given up years ago.

Hearing that phone ring now was...nerve wracking.

It wasn't until the third ring that Ignis actually reached out and picked it up, his movements a little jerky. It bothered him too. "Hello?" At least he sounded like himself.

 _"Can I speak with Prompto Argentum?"_ Their eyes met, and Prompto shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. He had no idea who that was. It was obviously a man, but the voice wasn't any more familiar than anyone else was over the phone. That aside, anyone else who knew him would call his cell. Why were they calling the landline?

"May I ask who's calling?" Ah. Ignis' voice had dipped down into the customer service tone. Probably not a bad idea.

_"Is he there?"_

"Sir, I'm asking you who you are. I might as well add what you might want with Prompto."

_"It's a personal matter!"_

Where Ignis was remaining outwardly calm, the man on the other end of that line was not. The reality was though that Ignis wasn't really remaining calm either, because his next response was, "Then you can come and talk to him personally." He hung up the phone with a sharp click.

"Iggy!"

"He'll call back," Ignis assured him, "If it's actually important."

It wasn't even a minute before the phone was ringing again, and, calmly, Ignis picked up the phone again. "Hello?"

_"How dare you!"_

"Easily," Ignis quipped back. "And I'll do it again, unless you tell me who you are."

 _"I am his father!"_ The man on the other end screamed, and all the blood seemed to drain out of Prompto's face, or at least, that was definitely what it felt like.

"Hold on a moment." Ignis put his hand over the end of the phone. "Do you want to talk to him?" It was a sincere question, Prompto knew. After all, Ignis had offered several times to find his parents for him after he'd come to the pack. Prompto had always said no. He knew he could say no now too. If he did, Ignis would turn around, hang up the phone again, and unplug it from the wall. Knowing that was an option was a comfort, but he got up from his chair instead.

"I'll...listen to what he has to say."

"All right." The receiver was placed gently in his hand, and Ignis, probably to distract himself, went back to working on breakfast. "Let me know if you need anything at all." As though he wouldn't hear every bit of the conversation, just as Prompto had.

"I will. Thanks." With his heart pounding, and the blood rushing in his ears, he put the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

 _"There you are!"_ His father practically screeched, as though Prompto's voice would be any more recognizable to him than his was to Prompto. How long had it been since he'd heard that voice? He'd still been a teenager. So, it had been more than twenty years.

...Twenty whole years. Fuck.

_"Who was that man?! He was very rude!"_

"That was Ignis, and he wouldn't have been rude if you'd just said who you were."

_"What's an Ignis? Your son?"_

That, between all the anxiety, fear, and panic, that made him snort into the phone, and beside him, he saw Ignis put a hand to his mouth to stifle a noise. "He's definitely not my son, Dad. He lives here though. He's family." That was probably the simplest way to put it. How else did one try to explain that he wasn't his husband, but he was a lover, and a pack member, and wonderful? Sure, he could just say all that, but, that would make this conversation even worse than it already was.

_"I'm your family."_

No, Prompto thought. No, his father had thrown him away long ago. His pack was his family now. Cindy and Luna were his family. The man he called Dad was not family. He sighed. "What do you want, Dad?"

_"So it's right to the point, huh?"_

"Yeah. It's been a couple years or so. So yeah. Right to the point."

_"Fine, right to the point then; your mother has died."_

Those words very much made it feel like the floor had dropped out beneath him, and so Prompto found himself leaning against the counter to keep himself upright. The rest of the conversation was mostly lost on him, a cause of death, a day, a time, a place for the wake and then the funeral, an expectation that he would be there hell or high water. The only thing he really remembered contributing to the conversation after the news of his mother's death was "I'll be bringing my family with me."

_"...Of course."_

The next thing he was really aware of was Ignis prying the phone out of his hand, and the fact that his ear was filled with the buzz of the dial tone. "You're going back to bed now."

"What about breakfast?"

"You can't even hang up the phone, let alone guide a fork to your mouth. Food can be after sleep."

"But what about--?"

"Don't worry," Ignis' voice was a soft croon in his ears. "I'll take care of everything, and you can worry about it again when you wake."

Ignis' hand on his shoulder guided him back to his bedroom, and down under the covers. "Sleep, Prompto." It was an order. As an omega he was obligated to follow exactly zero orders, and sometimes his pack forgot that, but as this order washed over him, Prompto didn't think that was why Ignis had given him an order now. He hadn't forgotten Prompto didn't have to obey. He felt like sleep might be hard, but with the mild inclination to follow an order it might be easier to give into it and close his eyes. Ignis was just trying to help him sleep. So he let it.

He would later not remember his dreams at all, though he would remember their anxiety.

When he woke, he felt wide awake, and everything seemed slightly off. It took a moment for the memory that his mother was now dead to sink back into his brain, but once it did he became keenly aware that this was what colored everything just a little wrong.

"There you are," Ignis said from the doorway. His lips quirked up in a small smile. "Are you hungry?"

The answer was somewhere between yes and no. No because of the emotions that twisted inside him. Yes, because he was a werewolf and he was literally starving. Yes won out in the end, and Prompto let Ignis bring him breakfast in bed, even though the clock said it was about one in the afternoon. Beside him, Ignis drank coffee and informed him of what he'd done while Prompto had lazily been asleep. (Ignis did not use the word lazy. No. Of course not. Ignis was being a really good dominant to him, taking care of him, and Prompto was just feeling guilty for it. It was an old song and dance by now.) Ignis had called both of their packmates.

"They both offered to meet us in Gralea immediately, but I thought you wouldn't want that, so I told them to be there by the time of the wake tomorrow."

"Thanks, Iggy." It really was a relief to feel more like he wasn't upending their respective family time with his own family issues. At the same time, it would feel better to have them there when he needed them, to support him. He was going to need it.

"I also took the liberty of packing most of the things we'll need for this trip, as well as calling your wedding and cancelling."

"What?!" Stress filled him from head to toe, but beside him, Ignis was only smiling viciously.

"You can't really think you're in any shape to go to that wedding and take proper pictures of their new lives together. They were already rude enough to call you the day before you were set to go somewhere else, and you were already nice enough to cancel plans for them. Your mother has died. They can force their shotgun plans on someone else now."

"You feel no remorse, do you?"

"None whatsoever." Ignis drained his mug and sat it on the bedside table with a clack. "Now, is there anything else you need before I go get our things in the car?"

"Car? Doesn't Noctis have the car?"

"I rented a car, naturally. We'll leave it in Gralea and come home in our car. Though I am starting to think we ought to just buy a second one. Something to discuss when we're all home again, perhaps."

Yeah, Prompto had to admit, one car was becoming more and more of a problem. They'd probably needed a second car for years, but until now nothing had been a big enough problem for there to be...an actual problem. Food for later thought. For now though. "Tell me you love me?"

"I love you, Prompto Argentum." The words were whispered in his ear, and their truth resonated in his soul. Lips pressed against the side of his head before Ignis got up, leaving a very cold space next to him. "We should get going, if we're to make it to Gralea by dark."

By dark... "Do we have a place to stay yet?"

"No," Ignis admitted. "I thought I'd look at the nearby hotels when we got there."

"Leave it to me?"

Ignis paused, and Prompto knew there was a small battle going on inside his head. Ignis didn't really want to leave anything to Prompto. He wanted to take care of everything, to take care of all Prompto's needs. Luckily, in the end, Ignis saw that this too was one of Prompto's needs, and he nodded. "I'll leave it to you then."

Ignis left to go put their things in the car, and Prompto rolled onto his back with his phone in hand. He pulled up a text conversation that had been going on for years and years now, even with phone changes, with breaks that were sometimes months long here and there.

 **Prompto, 2:23 p.m.** : _Hey! We're gonna be in Gralea for a couple days. Super last minute. Do u maybe have a place we can stay? Plz?_ :heart: :heart: :heart:

Despite his use of chatspeak and emoji hearts, the fact that it was all one text and not five said, at least to him, that it was a serious request. He knew he wasn't going to get a reply for hours and hours, so he left it at that and got up to brush his hair and help Ignis pack the car.

Ignis drove, because to this day, even after over a decade of real experience driving and not crashing, Ignis would not let Prompto drive if he was in the car. No matter how he whined that he wasn't _that_ bad anymore the answer was no, and Ignis was driving. The only small consolation was that Ignis was pretty much like that about everyone. Noct or Gladio only got to drive in dire situations, like when he'd been blind.

Gods, that had been so long ago. Looking at him now, Prompto couldn't even imagine him with the scar, it had faded before any of them had even gotten married. Hell, Prompto couldn't even remember Ignis in a suit, even though he'd worn them almost exclusively for the first two years they'd known each other.

"Iggy?"

"Yes?"

"How old am I?" This got him a _look_ , but Prompto held his stare. "I'm serious. I'm having trouble remembering."

Ignis turned his eyes back toward the road. "You'll be forty-three this year."

"Holy shit." Prompto tried to count that out on his fingers. He'd originally come to the pack when he'd been like twenty-five. So like. Eighteen years. Not quite half his whole life, but close enough. So many years of happiness and bliss with his pack, yet still, sometimes, he woke up with nightmares of a time that had been so short by comparison. Bad always outweighed the good.

This was a problem though. "Dad's gonna wonder why I'm so young."

"We could always tell him you bathe in the blood of virgins every evening."

"Iggy!"

Ignis looked anything but chastened with a wide grin spreading over his face. "It'll be okay, Prompto. For one thing, your father hasn't seen you since you were a teenager, yes?"

"...Yeah?"

"So he has no idea what you looked like ten or even twenty years ago. Some people naturally look older or younger than they are. For another, we're rich, so it's not implausible for us to say we've spent a small fortune on our youth, and as rich people, we're less stressed, so less lines. If it really worries you so much, we can buy some makeup and give you crow's feet, but I think it'll be all right."

That...did make him feel a little better. "Thanks, Iggy."

"Of course."

Prompto curled in on himself after that, and he was thankful when Ignis didn't chastise him for it. He had a lot of thinking to do, but really, in the end, all it was him thinking around in a circle about all the memories he'd perhaps missed and would now never get to have with his mother. He'd never really thought like that before. He'd always thought he'd put his parents behind him, yet all it had taken was a phone call and a few words to have him spiraling over missed opportunities.

He didn't know how much later it was when Ignis' hand on his knee brought him back to reality, but when he sat up, he found his cheeks were wet. He quickly rubbed the tears away.

"Are you all right? Truly?"

"I don't know?" Ignis didn't say anything to that and thankfully didn't call it a lie, because it wasn't. He really didn't know. Was he really grieving? Or was it shock? Or was it just that this was the first human in his life that he'd lost, even though he was going to live so much longer? He just didn't know.

"Iggy?"

"Yes?"

"What was it like for you when your mother died?" He knew it wasn't really a good question to ask. Even now Ignis guarded details of his past carefully, and he just generally didn't talk about it. If he talked about it at all, it was always after Noct's birth, after he'd become a werewolf. Prompto now knew Ignis' uncle's name had been Ignatius. He knew he'd run away from a marriage with Aranea to be the pack's silversmith. He knew he'd been Noctis' nanny, and some of Noct's childhood stories. He didn't know anything specific about his life as the silversmith, or his life before fleeing his family at all. You didn't ask, but he was asking now.

"Hmm." Prompto hated that he wasn't sure whether that was a good hmm or a bad hmm, and for too long Ignis said nothing after that, long enough that Prompto had accepted that Ignis wasn't going to give him an answer, when Ignis actually spoke. "My father died first."

"Yeah?"

Ignis nodded, eyes stubbornly on the road. "I was about thirty at the time, and I'd been on with the pack for ten years. I hadn't spoken to my parents since I'd left, but my eldest brother wrote to me on occasion." It didn't escape Prompto's notice that he called him his eldest brother, and not by a name. Perhaps that was for the best. Not to name old bad memories. "It'd been almost a year since my last letter, and this one purely stated that my father had died the month before and that I was largely at fault."

"You?"

"I left. It had been stressful and it broke his heart. According to the letter at any rate. The letter I received about my mother two years later said much the same, blaming me for not returning to take fill the hole in her heart that my father's death had left."

"That's terrible!"

"That was my family," Ignis said plainly. "We were a money driven group, and used words like love only when it might benefit us. My brother did not write me because he loved or missed me, but because I was still useful. Or so he thought at any rate. The letter about my mother was the last I ever received." Ignis paused. "I have...suspected for a while now that your family is not dissimilar."

That was still terrible, Prompto thought. No wonder he'd run away. It probably hadn't just been Aranea, instead she'd probably just been the last straw. "How did knowing they were gone make you feel?"

"I remember not mourning much at the time, if only because I'd mourned them when I left. I'd known I would never see them again, and I knew what I was throwing away. I'd already said goodbye."

"I thought I had too."

"No, darling. You are far too hopeful and optimistic for that. A flaw of your omega being."

"I thought you liked my omega being."

"I do," the words were accompanied by a soft pat on his leg. "It makes up for my inherent pessimism."

It was already getting dark when they drove past the suburb that he knew to the territory of Regis' pack. He sunk in his seat, feeling guilty that they were all the way out here, but they weren't even going to pick Noctis up, or visit, or...anything. "Should we stop?"

Beside him, Ignis shook his head, not seeming at all phased by having drove almost non-stop for like seven hours. "Noct said not to, we'll see him soon. It's enough that his bond feels stronger. For now."

"Okay."

In his pocket, his phone vibrated, and with some difficulty, he pulled it out to find a text. Finally, an answer to his question before they'd even left.

 **Aranea, 9:37 p.m.** : _Yeah, sure, give me an hour._  
**Prompto, 9:38 p.m.** : _Thx._ :heart:

"And what was that?"

"Update on where we're gonna stay."

"Should I be worried?"

"Nah. It'll be set in an hour."

"Sounds like it's a good time to stop for dinner then."

There weren't a great deal of kitchens that stayed open much past nine, but most Crow's Nests were open all the time rain or shine, and that was where they ended up. To say that this was Ignis' favorite restaurant chain would be a total lie, but it wasn't IHOP, and Ignis could confess to liking a couple of their dishes. It wasn't a bad meal, just quiet in a way that wasn't quite comfortable. There was too much going on. Neither Gladio or Noctis were here, and Prompto's mother was dead, and it was just...a lot. They ate and paid, and between they'd said nearly nothing. In fact, nearly nothing was said at all, until, Prompto had an address and they'd arrived with via the GPS.

The address number belonged to an old looking house, old, Victorian style, foreboding looking in a neighborhood that, while it wasn't cramped, definitely was not on the up and up side of town. Prompto didn't think any of that bothered Ignis, not really. What Prompto thought bothered Ignis was that Aranea was sitting on the front steps, and the grin that spread over her face when they pulled up.

"Hey, Shortcake!" She greeted him as he got out of the car. Ignis, noticeably lingered before he got out.

"Hey, Aranea."

"So," she gestured grandly behind her at the house. "What do you think? Suitable?"

"It's great, thanks."

"But are we safe in there?"

Aranea's smile grew, and once you could see the fangs, even Prompto knew there was no denying how predatory it was. "I'm the only vampire that's been in it so far."

"Are you moving the seethe?" Aranea hadn't mentioned anything like that, but then, they didn't talk a lot of business, at least not from her end. She probably thought it was better that way. She was probably right.

"Nah. When it's done this is going to be a halfway house of sorts."

"For?"

"Thralls."

Where Prompto's blood ran a little cold, Ignis scoffed. "You can't release them. They will always be thralls. It's not a catch and release sort of deal." From what Prompto understood, in general, it wasn't really a deal at all. Aranea said she was working toward a better kind of system between vampires and their prey, and Prompto believed she was. When he'd said this to his pack, he'd basically gotten an answer that something to the effect of "A cat will always pounce on a mouse. It's never good for the mouse."

"Yeah," Aranea said softly, indulgently even, "But a thrall will eventually become a vampire if we keep it too long, and large body counts just make more questions. Better to distance them from us slowly, and then let them live human-ish lives. Isn't it? Isn't that better than just making our number bigger? Better than just killing more people?"

"Better to try than not?"

"Something like that."

"Acceptable. I suppose."

"Happy for the approval." Her eye roll gave away the sarcasm of that statement a thousand times better than her tone of voice. "Anyway, here are the keys." They jingled in her hand as she shook them. "Price of admission is letting me know if I'm missing anything they're gonna need. Other than food in the fridge, before your smart ass gets any ideas."

"And?"

"And nothing. That's it."

"How generous."

Aranea snorted. "You're just lucky Shortcake is cute."

"Finally, something we agree on."

Aranea didn't ask why they were in Gralea before she left, and Prompto wasn't sure if he considered that a disappointment or a relief. It was probably a little of both. When it came down to it, a lot of things were both. Ignis let them in the house, and thoroughly inspected it almost immediately. He didn't say anything about it, so he must have found it at least minimally acceptable. For Prompto, it wasn't home, it didn't have their scents thoroughly ingrained in everything and instead smelled of things like paint and floor wax, and something else. It wasn't home, but it was better than a hotel room. There was some space to breathe, without the stark difference of only have one or two rooms and a bed to your name.

They didn't stay up long. They didn't even shower before they changed into nightclothes and crawled into one of the beds. Prompto pressed his face as close to Ignis' neck as he could get, in an attempt to get some semblance of home. Judging by how close Ignis was to him too, he suspected Ignis was doing the same thing. With the ache of grief in his chest and the lack of home around him it took a while to fall asleep, and even once he did, it didn't feel restful, especially not when he jolted awake to the sound of someone pounding on the front door.

He whined, actually whined, as Ignis pulled away from him, and in a sleepy daze he looked at the clock that Aranea had thankfully put in the room. 5:08 a.m. Who the fuck was knocking on their, not even _their_ door, at five in the morning? To find out, he had to get up, so he did. He kicked off the blankets and followed after Ignis.

They had barely reached the stairs when the knocking stopped. "Did they leave?"

"No," Ignis said, stifling a yawn that was very not-Ignis-like in that not quite put together way that Prompto always melted to see laid out before him. "It's Noctis, and I told him to knock it off."

"How--Oh. You're close enough to mind talk again."

"Indeed we are." Their mind talking thing wasn't always something they put on display, but when they did, even in the little ways it made Prompto jealous. Just how freaking cool was it to be able to just talk to your mate anytime? Well. Almost any time. Like pack bonds, their ability seemed to get weaker the further apart they were. Speaking of pack bonds, the line of thought reminded him to strum against them, and sure enough, Noct's bond with him was strong again. Noctis strummed back, and it resonated nicely in his chest. He still couldn't feel Gladio. Lestallum was too far away.

When Ignis opened up the front door, Noctis was there on the front porch, his clothes a little rumpled, his hair definitely not styled. He looked like shit. He looked like someone who hadn't slept. As though he were reading Prompto's thoughts and ideas too he said, "I couldn't sleep."

"I can totally tell."

"Jerk." He was smiling though, and so Prompto couldn't take offense.

"I'm going to get dressed," Ignis declared as soon as Noctis was actually in the house. "And then I'm going out to buy some things to make breakfast with."

"Dude, you don't have to. We can just. You know. Go out."

"Prompto. Darling." Long fingers trailing gently along his face. "I understand your intent. It's sweet, and I appreciate it." He could feel the 'but' before it came. "This house smells like paint, wax, sawdust, and just enough like blood that I suspect there was a murder in the parlor before Aranea bought it. I need it to smell like something else. Cooking food is a good start." Ignis kissed his forehead then, before he did the same thing to Noctis and was gone back up the stairs.

"I bet we could have this whole house smelling like sex before Specs gets back," Noctis commented softly.

Ignis must not have been far enough away to be out of earshot, because he answered. "That would also be an improvement!" And that made both of them laugh. Prompto hadn't been laughing much the last day, and boy, did laughing feel good.

"You don't want sex though, Noct."

"Do I ever?" His alpha deadpanned. "Really want it?" It was such an old discussion between them that it wasn't even an argument anymore. It was more like Prompto just felt like he had to point it out, and in return Noctis reminded him how much he didn't really mind. "But it does. You know. Feel good."

"I know."

"No you don't," Noctis said with a roll of his eyes. "Because you _always_ want sex."

Prompto snorted. "So that's the problem, huh? Did I steal all your sex drive?"

"Definitely. When I was born I knew someday I'd meet you and decided 'Well, he'll be horny enough for both of us so I guess I just won't be horny at all.'" Prompto snorted again, almost on the verge of laughing, when Noctis shattered it. "I'm sorry, by the way. About your mom."

Any traces of a smile faded from his face immediately. "Thanks. I. We weren't close. Obviously. But--"

"It's okay." Noctis bumped their shoulders together. "You don't have to explain shit to me. You're sad. I'm here."

"Thanks."

They were still standing shoulder to shoulder when Ignis returned, dressed, if not yet fully awake. "I'll be back soon."

"Not too soon," Noctis teased. "Or we don't be finished."

"Then I'll have to finish it for you, now won't I." Ignis snipped back before he shut the door.

"We're not actually going to...?"

"Nah," Noctis said with a shake of his head. "Not unless you actually think it'll help you."

"Probably not." It'd just be a distraction just then. What would help would be getting this wake and funeral over with and going back home to his normal life. At least he hoped.

"Didn't think so." Noctis pulled away and began to walk. Prompto followed. They ended up in the parlor area, the area Ignis said he smelled blood. Prompto himself hadn't really seen it before himself, but now that he was looking for it, yeah. It smelled like there was blood in the very structure of the room. It was an old and faded smell, but still there. "I bet even humans could get this place to light up like a glow stick with some luminol." Noctis mimed spraying a bottle around the room and then clucked his tongue. "If you don't mind, I think I'll get rid of it."

"You make that sound so easy."

"It was never easy," Noctis mumbled as he sat himself down on a very old looking couch that was somehow pristine and not faded at all. "But it was worth doing." Even now, Prompto counted himself lucky to be part of a pack that didn't stir up shit. Noctis' father's pack was apparently always getting in trouble for sticking their fingers in all the pies, but according to Noctis that was to be expected. His father was kind of like the alpha of all alphas. Noctis said he didn't want to be like that. He just wanted to live his life surrounded by the people he loved the most. With that sort of mindset and the power to pack it up, Prompto had only ever heard of Noctis' magic being used to clean up forensic evidence. He'd never seen it. He was kind of curious to see it done now.

It wasn't much of a show, not like his lightning and fire. It was delicate magic, Noctis explained as he did it, so it took him a while to get right. Watching him mostly consisted of sitting on the couch with him, watching Noctis drum his fingers on the coffee table. Chalk, salt, and hand movements were all "rookie" things, and even in the beginning Noctis hadn't bothered with them. Who had the space to carry salt and chalk everywhere? Who had the time to memorize all those movements? Noctis just "did" magic, which he described as often feeling like doing a Rubix cube all the time. Sometimes it was easy to align all the colors. Sometimes it took a while. Sometimes you got fucking frustrated and you peeled off all the stickers and made the colors align.

Noctis did not recommend that last method.

Eventually, after a lot of tapping, the Rubix cube apparently aligned, and Prompto got to see a soft blue glow fill the room. At first it looked like stars, until Prompto realized all at once that what he was looking at was not stars at all but blood spatter. Ew. It took away the whimsical effect of watching all the little dots bit by bit disappear as whatever magic Noctis was working actually got rid of it.

"So you used to do that," Prompto commented after all the blue was gone and the room actually smelled like a breath of fresh air. "All the time."

"Yeah. Normally before the actually puddles had been cleaned up. Sometimes from my wheelchair."

"You had a wheelchair?"

"Yeah. I. Couldn't walk, right after Ignis would do the ritual. Usually for a couple weeks."

"...Oh." He paused before adding. "I'm glad you don't do that anymore."

"Me too." And well. There was nothing else that Prompto could really say about that, not without making it worse.

For a few minutes they just sat there, maybe because without the blood and thanks to whatever magic Noctis had worked the room smelled better. It smelled like a window was open and there was some fresh air flowing in. It smelled not stale and newly renovated. It just smelled better, probably better than anywhere else in the house.

"Hey, Noct?"

"Hm?"

"I know she died when you were born, but, did you ever, like, mourn your mom?"

Like Ignis, Noctis took a long time to answer, almost long enough that Prompto wasn't sure he would, but then he opened up his mouth and spoke. "Not. Really?"

"Oh."

At that moment, Prompto thought that was all the answer he'd get, but then Noctis went on. "I didn't really know her. Even when Dad or the pack would tell me stories about her it was never really anything I connected to. It was like Specs telling me fairytales. It was about something -someone- else. Separate. As a kid I never even really imagined having her around. I had Dad. I had the pack. I had Ignis. My life was complete."

"That makes sense."

"I miss her a little more now, I guess."

Prompto frowned, he could feel his nose scrunch up in confusion. "Why?"

"I don't really grieve her, really, but sometimes, something will happen and I'll...wonder. What it would have been like. To have her in my life." Noctis licked his lips. "Like when I told dad that I was dating all of you. He basically didn't give a shit, but I wondered if Mom would have. If she would have been happy for me or angry, or if she would have felt I was making a mistake. It wasn't. You know. A mistake." Prompto smiled. "But I wondered if she would have felt that way. So I guess I mourn for what I might have had, if she had lived."

"Yeah." Prompto's voice both sounded and felt husky in his throat, so he cleared it. "That makes a lot of sense."

"You're doing that too, you know." Noctis' hand slipped into his own, his head came to rest on his shoulder. Those were typical attempts at comfort from Noct. Prompto squeezed that hand to show he appreciated it. "She was never really in your life. You're not mourning her, the person she really was. You're mourning what could have been. What you wish had been."

"Is...is that so bad?"

"No," Noctis breathed. "No. You mourn that as much as you like, and I'll be right here. Ever at your side."

"Okay." He was crying now. Noctis didn't say anything about it, and for that, Prompto was grateful.

Almost as though they'd timed it, the sound of the car pulling up in front of the house reached his ears and Gladio's text chime went off. His phone was still plugged in upstairs, so he had to get up to get it. Noctis let him up, he even got up himself, probably to go help Ignis with whatever groceries he'd bought. Prompto took the stairs up two at a time and when pulled the phone of its charger he saw Gladio's text.

 **Gladio, 6:18 a.m.** : _I'm on my way. Love you._

Even as he held it in his hands the phone buzzed again and a new text showed up.

 **Gladio, 6:21 a.m.** : _Dad says we'll be there just after noon._

Prompto opened up the phone and replied.

 **Prompto, 6:22 a.m.** : _Cool. Wake is @ 2, so that works._

He didn't have any excess energy to put into texting a bunch of emojis, so he didn't try. Instead he took his phone downstairs with him and played the ten thousandth reincarnation of _Candy Crush_ while Ignis cooked and Noctis drifted between watching them both. Ignis, as he normally was, was right. The house began to smell more like a house and less like a giant thing of paint and taint the more he cooked. After as many pancakes as he could eat (which was quite a few at this point) Prompto was all but dragged back off to bed, and this time, sleep came more easily.

The next time he woke up it was nearly eleven, and he dragged himself out of the pile of limbs that was the bed and went off to the shower. The bathroom smelled a bit too strongly of bleach, but that was better than it smelling too strongly of mold, Prompto decided he was going to apply the same philosophy Ignis has to the bathroom. If he took a shower, it would smell like shower and him more than the bleach. After the shower, when everything smelled like steam and generic soap, Prompto decided it also felt good to be freshly clean. Somehow, showering always seemed to wash away more than just dirt. It seemed to wash away some negativity as well.

Ignis took a shower after him, though, if his face was anything to go by, he would have rathered not. Noctis went last, and by that time it was noon, and Prompto was jittery. In two hours. Just two hours and he would be facing his father, a man he hadn't seen since before he'd graduated high school. In two hours he would be forced to full face the death of his mother, who he also hadn't seen in that long. He knew what he expected to happen. The expectations did not make the anxiety in his gut lessen.

A hand grasped his shoulder and Prompto stopped pacing. When had he started pacing? The hand rubbed his shoulder affectionately and he turned to find Ignis standing there, his hair still a little damp, but otherwise fully ready to head out the door. He was wearing a version what was probably Prompto's favorite outfit on him, and had been since the first time he'd seen it however many odd years ago now. A leopard patterned shirt, with a soft cardigan and slacks. Normally, Ignis favored a bit of color, usually something ridiculous like purple, a color leopards definitely didn't come in, but today everything was black and gray. A silent nod to the fact that there was mourning going on.

"Dad is gonna hate this," Prompto said as he plucked at the fabric of Ignis' shirt. So not formal. So not traditionally masculine.

"Good," Ignis responded with some measure of viciousness in his voice. "I'm not particularly keen on making him like me."

"Please don't start a fight?"

"Ladies don't start fights, but they can finish them." Prompto snorted at the _Aristocats_ quote and glowed a little inside when Ignis kissed his forehead. "I'm pretty sure Gladio is waiting outside."

"What?"

"Go on."

Prompto checked his mate bond as he ran down the stairs, and yeah, Gladio was really close now. He'd been getting closer for a while, the bond that had been stretched so thin between him and Lestallum growing thicker and stronger, but now it was as strong as it was when they were both at home. Home. When he threw open the door and saw Gladio was indeed standing right there, just waiting to be noticed, he broke down and sobbed. He wasn't crying because his mother was dead, no. No. Gladio was here. His mate was here, and finally, with all three of pack members here, he was home.

"Shh," Gladio was saying even as he picked Prompto up into his arms. "It's okay, Prom. It's okay. I'm here."

Yes, Prompto thought as he inhaled that scent he'd missed so much the last few days. He was here. They were all here, and that meant that no matter what everything was going to be okay.

They ended up on the couch, practically glued together, not doing much of anything at all. Gladio's hand was in and through his hair in a constant, comforting motion, and Prompto didn't even have the strength to complain about messing up his hair. He'd missed his mate so much. So fucking much. He couldn't begrudge him the need to spend time with his father and sister, especially not when he would have gone too, if it hadn't been for that job he'd ended up not even being able to do, but oh, how he'd missed him - everything about him.

Ignis and Noctis had the grace to leave them alone until Noctis poked his head into the living room and said it was time to head out.

Normally, Prompto sat shotgun while Ignis drove. Today was not a normal day, and the arrangement they came to without any words at all was that Noctis took shotgun, leaving both Gladio and Prompto in the back. It was good that way, except that Prompto couldn't just lay his head in Gladio's lap the whole way. No, seat-belts were required, even now. They held hands though, and the feel of Gladio's thumb over his skin was perhaps the only thing keeping him from completely breaking down over the idea of seeing his father in less than an hour.

The place they pulled up in front of seemed both tiny and large, and almost absurdly clean. It was brick with a white metal roof and a parking lot that had obviously been resurfaced so that it was too black for all the cracks in it. 

He almost ran. The sight of the door was enough to put the quakes in his knees, and it was only Gladio's large hand at his back that pushed him forward.

Inside, the place was morbidly manila. It smelled of Clorox and pollen, the source of the pollen being the flowers sat in giant gold colored vases that practically blended in with the walls. There were some people inside, enough that it didn't seem empty, but also not enough people to make it feel full. They were chattering away in that soft hushed way that people at churches and funerals did. Lackluster and bland, those were the words to describe it all. In fact, much later, those were the exact words Ignis would use to describe the whole affair.

Prompto tried to pick out his father from the gathering of people, but he wasn't quite able to do it until a man separated himself from the group and addressed him by name. "Prompto?"

"H-Hi, Dad."

As a child, Prompto had always seen his father as a strong man - larger than life, so to speak. The man that approached them now was nothing like the father he had in his memory. Prompto wasn't a tall man, but his father was even shorter, the back he'd remembered being so straight as a child had begun to hunch over with age. His hair had mostly fled, and his face was filled with age lines. They weren't the sort of lines that Cindy had begun to show, the lines of someone who had smiled often in their life. All in all the man before him now was small, not at all the man Prompto had once seen him as. Somehow, Prompto still felt like an ant before him.

"I see you managed to make it."

"Of course we did." It hurt to think that his father had actually thought he might try to skip out on his mother's funeral. Even if he'd been penniless, he would have found a way to make it. Of course, if his life hadn't gone the way it had, he probably would have still been in Gralea, it would have been a matter of bus rides, rather than a short road trip. It was odd, to think. If Ardyn hadn't attacked him all those years ago, or if Cor would have never saved him. He would have never met Gladio, Ignis, or Noctis. He wouldn't be a city-famous photographer. He wouldn't be in love with the three men who meant the most to him. He. He probably wouldn't be happy, because he was. He was happy with his life, most of the time. "I wouldn't miss this."

"Of course not." His father paused. "You and yours look...well." There was a hint of suspicion there, the hint that Prompto had been afraid of. They all looked young, very young. He hadn't said it outright yet, but Prompto could see the idea across his face. They were young, they were well dressed...they were all men.

"Thanks. You too." He didn't say anything about it. It would be more suspicious to try and explain it, unless directly asked. He knew that.

"Aren't you going to introduce me?"

"Oh! Right! Of course. Um." He paused for a moment, stumbling over who he should introduce first. Pack code would normally indicate Noctis ought to be first, and Noctis was his husband, the connection most easily understood by someone like his father, but then how would be introduce Ignis and Gladio? How? After a moment, he decided on a different path completely. "This is Ignis." He brought Ignis a little more forward so that they stood side by side.

"You're the one on the phone."

"Yes. We spoke, briefly."

"You hung up on me." Behind them, he heard Gladio cough. The sort of cough that was clearly covering up a laugh. Prompto yanked on their bond in an attempt to get him to shut up. He did.

He didn't have to be looking up at Ignis' face to see the smile that fell just this side of vicious, he could see that smile reflected in his father's face. "My apologies for that. I thought you were some sort of scammer." Prompto sensed both a truth and a lie in those words. Ignis _had_ thought his father was some sort of scammer, however, he was anything but sorry. There was a thrill of amusement between their bonds, and though he hadn't heard it Prompto got the distinct impression that Noctis had just told Ignis what a liar he was.

His father grumbled an acceptance that wasn't quite clear even to Prompto's ears before Ignis took one step to the side and Prompto urged Gladio forward. "And this is Gladio--"

"Nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

"--And Noctis."

"Hi." He felt more than saw Noctis wave his hand in greeting.

There was an eternal moment of awkwardness before his father opened his mouth to speak again. "And you are all...family." It was phrased like a question but said like a statement. Prompto was eternally grateful that it was Ignis who answered first.

"In everything but blood. We've lived together for many years now. We face everything together as one."

"That sounds like hippie bullshit."

"Dad!"

"No, Prompto, he's right." He looked up at Ignis' face, and there was that smile again, the not-quite-vicious one. "It sounds like that, new age, idealistic garbage. Yet for us it works. It's worked for nearly seventeen years. Longer, I suspect, than Prompto was ever in the Argentum household."

"Iggy!" He hissed, and Ignis shrugged his shoulders slightly, almost so slightly he didn't notice it. He was pretty sure his father actually hadn't.

"But we're not here to talk about that sort of thing, are we, Mr. Argentum? You asked your son to come and mourn with you. Your son asked us to be his moral support during this time. And that is that. Please." Ignis gestured toward the rest of the hall. "The wake is about to begin, is it not? Don't let us hold you back from your process."

As most men didn't, his father didn't take the fact that potential flaws or mistakes had been pointed out to him very well. His face turned a color that Prompto more closely associated with a beet than a human being. He didn't say anything more, but he stormed off to start the wake in earnest. It was really much more than what had been going on before. The people, none of which Prompto recognized at all, milled about talking in that hushed sort of way that made Prompto want to put his hands over his ears. No one else came to talk to them, to share memories or ask about his relationship. No one came to them at all, and even if Prompto hadn't been able to hear every word they said because of his hearing, well, the no-so-subtle glances over shoulders would have been a dead giveaway that the gossiping was about them, and that they weren't really welcome.

There was no structure to it, no line forming so that they could all view the body in an orderly fashion, no stories told to the group at large, no...nothing. It was just as manila as the rest of it. To Prompto they all almost seemed like zombies, shuffling around, moaning and groaning about anything and everything that got in their way.

"I don't think we should all go up."

They were the first words any of them had said to each other since his father had left them, and so they all naturally looked at Ignis. "No?"

"No. Just Prompto, and I was thinking Noctis, since he's the bond humans legally recognize."

"Okay," Prompto whispered, and Noctis stepped forward where Ignis and Gladio drifted back off toward the wall nearest the door. That was a pretty clear sign that after this they were leaving, and honestly Prompto was okay with that. This wasn't bringing him any closure, he couldn't imagine how this could bring anyone closure. Not like this.

Fingers slid into his hand, and Prompto squeezed. Okay, he tried to tell himself. He was ready for this. He was ready to look at his mother's corpse. He was ready. This was what he told himself, but the truth was that Noctis more lead him up to the front than anything else.

Even from the back he'd been able to see the casket. It was plain, but nicely made in light stained wood and white draping. The closer they got the more that it smelled like death disguised in perfume. Full of chemicals and a sweetness that honestly made Prompto want to throw up. The reaction only got worse they actually made it up to look inside. It wasn't that the body was horribly disfigured or anything of the sort, in fact, she looked that sort of peaceful that movies and books always tried to portray. Peaceful, sleeping, but the smell told a wholly different story. She was dead and slowly rotting. The height of different between reality and the illusion wasn't what made it so bad though. No. What made it terrible was that when Prompto looked inside that coffin all he saw was a woman he didn't recognize.

For him, it was the final truth. He didn't belong here. He hadn't belonged here in many years.

"I'm going to go say goodbye to my father," he whispered to Noctis. "And then we're gonna go, okay?"

"Yeah. Do you want me to come with you?"

"No," Prompto said firmly. "It's my final goodbye. So. I want to do it by myself."

"There's the funeral tomorrow too, Prom."

"No," he said again. "We're not going to the funeral. This was enough for me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." Noctis leaned in and kissed his cheek. "We'll be waiting." He pulled away then, and Prompto watched him drift over to where the others were waiting close to the door. He knew that they would be there when he was finished here.They would be here to help him to the car. They would help him get home. They would help him get over this loss he hadn't even realized he was going to be having. They were there for him, in a way no one ever had been before he'd been brought to them.

He was pretty sure that all eyes were on him as he approached the small group his father was standing with. He did his best to keep his head held up high, his eyes on his father's face as he approached. His heart hammered away in his chest, but he was going to be strong this time. He was going to show no fear. None. Zero. He kept thinking that, yet as he stopped in front of him, the breath he took in was shaky. "We're heading out, Dad."

"All right," his father said, the picture of control. It didn't even seem like he was grieving his wife. Had they even loved each other? "I'll see you all tomorrow, I suppose."

"No," he said, proud of the confidence in his voice, real or feigned. "We won't be back tomorrow. I'm saying goodbye now."

"You're skipping the funeral." Another one of those statements that sounded like it ought to be a question. Had his father always spoken like that? Maybe. Probably even. Prompto just didn't remember.

"Yeah. Coming here today made me realize...I don't know either of you. And you don't know me either. Not anymore." If they ever even had at all.

"We're your family."

"No. No my family is standing by the door over there. You don't even know what's happened in my life. And I don't know what's happened in yours. I look at you and I don't even recognize your face. Do you want to know what's happened since we last talked?"

"You got into a relationship with three men. I know that."

Those words, said in such hate, that was enough. It wasn't often that the thread inside Prompto snapped as though he were some young dominant wolf, unable to control himself. It snapped now. "I was kidnapped! Kidnapped and tortured for a year!" He spat, he was spitting and angry. His father said nothing, and so Prompto continued on. "I was saved! Days from death! The police brought me to them! To help me recover! They cared! They were gentle! They accepted me! More than you or mom ever did! They held me close but let me be free! They loved me! And I love them! They're my mates!" The humans in the room would find it odd that he was using a word they took to mean friends, a not commonly used for it at that, for the men that it was now clear were lovers, but the way emotions rippled through the pack bonds told Prompto that his pack had caught it. Not lovers, not friends, not family -- mates. He'd called them all his _mates_. Prompto knew he'd used the right word. He might only be allowed to technically have one, but Ignis and Noctis had been just as much mates to him as Gladio. They deserved the word, and his wolf agreed. Yes. They were all his, and he was all of theirs. It was the right word.

"Coming here today." Prompto took in a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. "It just showed me that I haven't known you or mom in a long time. It's not what you wanted." It wasn't even what he'd really wanted after a while. If it had been, he would have let Ignis find them. It wouldn't have been this to bring them together. "So no, I'm not coming to the funeral tomorrow. That should be for people who knew her, and I didn't. So this is goodbye."

"Goodbye, huh?"

"Yes. We...probably won't meet again this lifetime." Even as a werewolf, Prompto wasn't sure if reincarnation was a thing. If it was he hoped that maybe next time around they'd be friends. He didn't think that was a bad thing to hope for. Friends. Soul growth. "So. Goodbye, and I hope you have a good life." Prompto bowed his head a little and then walked away at a pace that was almost a run. He wasn't even positive that he'd reached the door until he felt Gladio's hand at his back, warmth and comfort radiating off the touch.

It wasn't until they were all in the car and Ignis was pulling out of the parking lot that any of them spoke. It was Noctis. "Full offense, Prom, but your dad is a dick."

Prompto gave a laugh that was somewhere between a snort and a sob. "Yeah," he agreed even as his voice crackled. "I think he was always that way, and I just loved him too much to care before."

"I can't blame you." Noctis huffed. "But man, how did you ever come out of that?"

Prompto snort-sobbed again. "I _was_ adopted."

"So it's nature rather than nurture," Ignis put in.

"Guess so."

The rest of the car ride back to Aranea's place was silent except for the hum of the engine and other outside sounds. That was okay. Prompto felt that just then, he didn't need words. Not yet.

It was only when he went to get on out of the car that Noctis spoke again. "Why don't you and Gladio go get food?"

"It's a little early for dinner, Noct."

"Yeah, but it is definitely not too early to eat our emotions." Noctis' smile seemed weak, but Prompto returned it anyway. It was good to smile at all. "Go on, take Gladio, get a lot of whatever you want."

"You sure?"

"Yep."

It felt like it had been a long time since he had been in the car with just Gladio. Ignis was the usual driver, so he ended up alone with Ignis more often than not. Sometimes it was Noctis, when he didn't feel like taking the bus to work, but Gladio was an almost never. Being alone with him in the car brought him back to a time when it had been him and Gladio all the time, on a daily basis, taking small road trips where he'd take pictures and search for a place to call their own. It made him nostalgic for a time when things were just starting to feel better again. It had been a time when he'd still been learning how to be a werewolf and how to be part of a pack. The time when he'd first started falling for Gladio. Romantic love for Ignis and Noctis would come later, but even then he'd loved them, just as he'd told his father. Gentle hands that had cared for him when he'd needed it back then. Those same hands were here for him now.

The feeling made his chest ache, and he leaned his head against the window.

"So where are we going?"

"Noodles and Company." The words came as easily to his lips as breathing. Important moments in his life always happened at that chain.This was an important moment. Naturally that meant they were going there. "And then somewhere we can get lots of cheeseburgers."

Next to him Gladio snorted. "Balanced. Iggy's gonna love it."

Prompto smiled against he glass. "We can get him a side salad or something."

Even when you were the only people in the store, there was a bit of a wait for your food at Noodles and Company. That meant that they sat at a table while they waited for everything to be prepared, and it also meant that it was the perfect moment to ask the question that had gnawed at him for the past little while. "Gladio?"

"Yeah?"

"What was it like for you when your mom died?"

"Hmm." Gladio paused, just as the other had when he'd asked them similar questions. "It was probably the third hardest time of my life."

"Only the third?"

"Yeah," Gladio said with a self conscious chuckle. "The time after breaking up with Iggy, and that time when we thought he might die? Top two. But when I was sixteen Mom's death was the absolute worst possible thing. She was...great, so it was really hard to accept that cancer can just swoop in and take those you love the most. I was mad, at almost everyone really. I loved her and she was gone."

"Does it get easier?"

"Yes and no?" Gladio shrugged. "Yes because eventually you can go weeks without even thinking about it, but no because once you do think about it, it's...everything for a little while."

It was everything for a little while he said, and here he was having made Gladio think about it. Like the selfish person he was. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right." Little bits of warmth flowed through their bonds, and when Prompto looked up at Gladio's face his expression was as warm as the color of his eyes. "Iggy warned me you'd probably ask, since you asked both him and Noct. You've never had a death like this before. It's new. You need the support. That's what we're here for." One large hand ran up and down his arm. The hand of his mate. The hand of someone he loved more than life itself. He couldn't help himself, he leaned into it like it was all that tethered him down.

"I appreciate it, you know."

"We do," Gladio said as the woman put four bags filled with noodles on their table. "We know, and we know you'd do the same for us." Prompto got to feel a little bit better at that, because it was true. He would. He would do _anything_ for them.

By the time they got home it was still a little early for dinner, but they ate like they hadn't eaten in years, which, considering that they hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning was pretty much years in werewolf time. Ignis didn't even complain about the lack of balance in their meal, and when Prompto checked the bonds it wasn't just him that was drained, it was all of them. His ordeal was weighing on all of them, and never before that moment was Prompto more sure that he'd made the right choice. This was his family, and they didn't need to go to that funeral tomorrow.

"Mates, huh?"

"Hm?"

"At the end of your confrontation with your dad, you called us all your mates. Don't think I forgot."

"Don't think _we_ forgot," Ignis chimed in from the kitchen.

"You guys aren't mad about it, are you?" It didn't feel that way, but he couldn't be sure...until Noctis kissed him like he was air, and all doubts left him. No. He thought that they thought that word was just as right as he did. And then, well, then his pack ensured that he wasn't thinking about much of anything for a while. He later fell asleep feeling better than he had since he'd answered his father's call what felt like years ago now, but had only really been less than two days. He was loved, and that was enough.

In the morning, his pack let him do nothing but text Aranea to inform her that the house was fine, save for the smell, and that they would be long gone back to Insomnia by the time she returned to life that evening. Breakfast was eaten out, not at an IHOP, but it was similar enough without the end result of Ignis fuming by the time they stepped back into the car. It was only once they were pulling out of the parking lot that Prompto realized there was one more bit of closure he perhaps wanted. "Can. Can we stop somewhere before we get back on the highway?"

"Of course, just tell me where I'm going."

The directions came to him with some difficulty. It had been nearly two decades since he'd been there after all, but after a few needless turns and some winding roads they found it. Prompto half couldn't believe it even as he looked at it in all its glory. It had a new sign - hell, it had a whole new storefront - but the shop itself was still there. That little coffee shop that he felt he'd practically lived in at one point. How many hours had he spend making specialty coffees and studying for tests he felt he was never going to pass? How many days had he spent thinking that life for someone like him was never going to get better than that? How many lattes with extra vanilla had he made for one Ardyn Izunia, all the while hoping that the man would leave and never return?

The answer to all those questions was too many.

"Did you wanna go inside and get some coffee for the road?"

"No." Prompto said, leaning back against Gladio as much as his seat belt would allow. "No, I just wanted to see it."

"Are we heading homeward then?"

Prompto closed his eyes and nodded a little as a sense of warmth filled him. Life wasn't perfect. It would be a while before he recovered from facing his father and accepting not only that his mother had died, but that he had moved on from them, probably a long time ago. It would be a while, but he had his pack. His pack had him. In the end, Prompto knew that was all that mattered.

"Yeah. Let's go home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIN.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope to see all of you in my continuing and future stories. <3


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